11  Jeremy  Taylor,"  by  Mr.  EDMUND  GOSSE, 
an  interesting  addition  to  Messrs.  MACMILLAN 
English  Men  of  Letters  series.  That  th 
proUge  of  LAUD,  brought  up  in  the  stricter 
principles  of  Anglicanism,  should  have  als 
found  favour  with  one  of  our  leading  Noncon 
formist  historians,  Dr.  STOUGHTON,  is  a  remark- 
able testimony  to  his  merits.  His  views  on 
toleration  gave  offence  to  some  orthodox 
divines  in  his  own  day  ;  yet  Dr.  JOHNSON,  who 
was  no  great  champion  of  toleration,  had  the 
highest  opinion  of  him.  An  interesting  con- 
versation between  JOHNSON  and  BOSWELL  on 
TAYLOR'S  "  Golden  Grove "  is  not  noticed  by 
Mr.  GOSSE,  who,  if  he  thinks  little  of  it  as  a 
literary  work,  should  have  recorded  what  JOHN- 
SON says  of  its  excellence  as  a  manual  of  devo- 
tion. TAYLOR'S  "  Holy  Living  and  Dying  "  is, 
however,  the  work  by  which  he  is  best  known 
to  the  public.  It  originally  appeared  in  two 
separate  parts,  between  which  Mr.  GOSSE  sees 
a  marked  difference,  the  treatise  on  Dying 
being,  in  his  judgment,  infinitely  superior  to 
that  on  Living.  HALLAM  condemns  the  "Liberty 
of  Prophesying  "  on  account  of  its  alleged  in- 
consistency, and  doubts  whether  TAYLOR  was 
always  ingenuous  or  sincere.  But  his  is  a  fame 
which  can  carry  a  few  shots  of  this  kind  without 
any  injury.  Of  the  "  Liberty  of  Prophesying," 
Dr.  STOUGHTON  says  that  "in  point  of  elo- 
quence no  other  work  of  the  kind  can  be 
compared  with  it,  and,  though  defective,  it  is 
etill  worthy,  for  the  sake  of  its  reasoning  as 
well  as  its  rhetoric,  to  be  a  text-book  for  the 
student  of  religious  liberty."  The  vicissitudes 
and  sufferings  which  TAYLOR  experienced  during 
tho  Civil  War  and  Protectorate,  in  addition  to 
his  eminent  services  to  the  Church  and  the 
Monarchy,  entitled  him  to  a  higher  reward  than 
he  received  at  tho  Restoration.  He  was  twice 
imprisoned,  his  living  of  Uppingham  was 
sequestered,  and  at  times  he  was  on  the  verge 
of  destitution.  In  August,  1660,  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  Bishopric  of  Down  and  Connor, 
and  we  may  well  wonder  with  the  late  Canon 
OVERTON  why  some  preferment  was  not  found 
for  him  hi  England.  The  rumour  that  his 
second  wife,  JOANNA  BRIDGES,  was  a  natural 
daughter  of  CHARLES  the  FIRST  would — even  if 
true,  which  there  is  little  reason  to  believe — 
scarcely  furnish  a  reason  for  what  was  pr><* 
tically  a  banishment.  It  is  an  odd  coincide' 


.AYI,OK  and  BW  by  th        who 

The  BISHOP 


whether  a    preacher    «    *^*~£  equaliy 
he    arise  among    us         ^  ^  day 

admired.    I  e  PU  P*  whether  that  is  the 

particularly  popuiai.  delicate 

fault  of  the  preacher  or  the^  people^  ^  ^ 

question,    °*'eil"1Ss^enteenth  Century  it  wa, 
inquiry,     in  *  nraacher  was  everywhere 

otherwise.    A  good  prea.ne 
listened   to  with  d ehght^     Lhe  . ^ 

=^,»-™.?s 


0^  time,  the  Pul™c  "?    arisinK  from  exactly 
in    general,   ^^^"^  operated  in 

styie    UA    f       „  .rtrr..j  to  would  not 


on  the 
^i 

o,aroh"ne  Divine 


[BRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CAT  [FORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


ENGLISH   £MEN   OF   LETTERS 
JEREMY  TAYLOR 


ENGLISH   <£MEN   OF 


JEREMY    TAYLOR 


BY 


EDMUND      GOSSE 


LONDON:    MACMILLAN    fcf    CO.,    LIMITED 
NINETEEN      HUNDRED      AND      FOUR 


Copyright  in  the  United  States  of  America,  1903 


College 
Library 

PH 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

THIS  volume  contains  a  conscientious  attempt  to 
present  for  the  first  time  a  detailed  biography  of 
Jeremy  Taylor.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  career  of 
so  eminent  and  so  beloved  a  writer  should  not  have 
attracted  more  attention  from  literary  historians.  But 
its  incidents  were  neglected  during  the  lifetime  of 
those  who  could  have  remembered  him,  and  were  not 
made  the  object  of  inquiry  until  external  evidence 
could  no  longer  be  obtained.  The  Funeral  Sermon, 
published  by  George  Rust,  Bishop  of  Dromore,  in  1668, 
is  a  document  invaluable  to  the  biographer,  but  it 
stands  alone.  Some  particulars  were  added  by 
Anthony  a  Wood,  and  some  by  Harris  in  his  1746 
edition  of  the  Works  of  Sir  James  Ware,  who  however 
died  before  Jeremy  Taylor. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  several  efforts  were  made 
to  collect  notes  for  Taylor's  memoirs,  in  particular  by 
George  Home,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  and  then  by  Thomas 
Zouch,  the  antiquary,  but  these  were  abandoned  for 
lack  of  material.  In  1793,  to  a  volume  of  selections, 
Wheeldon  prefixed  a  Life,  which  is  a  mere  paraphrase 
of  Rust,  and  is  without  independent  value.  The 


vi  JEREMY  TAYLOR 

Rev.  Henry  Kaye  Bonney  was  the  first  to  succeed 
in  making  original  researches,  which  he  used  in  his 
memoir  of  Jeremy  Taylor  published  in  1815.  This 
book,  however,  is  inadequate  and  untrustworthy,  and 
no  one  became  more  conscious  of  its  defects  than 
Bonney  himself,  who  set  himself  to  correct  it,  and 
who,  when  he  heard  that  Heber  was  engaged  in 
editing  Jeremy  Taylor,  generously  withdrew  his  book 
from  circulation,  and  placed  his  corrections  and  fresh 
information  in  Heber's  hands. 

Every  student  of  Jeremy  Taylor  owes  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  Reginald  Heber,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Calcutta,  for  his  edition  of  the  text  and  for  his  careful 
commentary.  He  worked  at  the  former  when  he  was 
vicar  of  Hodnet,  Salop,  and  he  finished  it  just  before 
he  went  out  to  India.  The  Works  appeared  in  1822, 
in  fifteen  volumes,  and  contained  a  Life  which  threw 
a  flood  of  new  light  over  the  biography  and  biblio- 
graphy of  Jeremy  Taylor.  As  was  inevitable,  however, 
in  surveying  a  tract  of  literary  history  so  long  and  so 
completely  neglected,  Heber's  narrative  contained  a 
large  number  of  misstatements,  and  he  was  moreover 
the  victim  of  a  mystification  which  will  presently  be 
referred  to.  His  exile  in  India,  and  his  premature 
death,  prevented  any  revision  of  his  valuable  work. 
Meanwhile,  J.  S.  Hughes,  in  1831,  prefixed  to  a 
selection  from  Taylor's  Works  a  Life  that  has  no 
biographical  value.  But  in  1847  the  Rev.  Robert 
Aris  Willmott,  of  Bearwood,  published  a  very  graceful 


PREFATORY  NOTE  vii 

little  book  entitled  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  his  Pre- 
decessors, Contemporaries,  and  Successors,  a  sketch  of  the 
English  Church  in  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  corrected  Heber  in  some  particulars, 
and  added  one  or  two  fresh  facts. 

All  these  biographies  were  superseded,  however,  by 
the  labours  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Page  Eden,  fellow  of 
Oriel,  and  vicar  of  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  who  undertook 
the  complete  revision  of  Heber's  Jeremy  Taylor.  His 
edition  of  the  Works,  which  was  in  ten  volumes,  and 
occupied  several  years,  was  completed  in  1854  by 
what  was  called  volume  i.,  which  contained  Heber's 
Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  corrected,  enlarged,  and  sup- 
plied with  voluminous  notes.  Eden  was  a  fine  scholar, 
and  he  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  modest  of 
men,  for  he  concealed  the  importance  of  his  work 
under  the  guise  of  a  loyal  fidelity  to  Heber.  He  is, 
therefore,  scarcely  named  by  the  bibliographers,  yet 
it  is  no  more  than  justice  to  point  out  that  it  is 
his  recension  of  Heber's  memoir,  very  inconveniently 
arranged,  indeed,  being  cumbered  with  notes  and 
appendices,  and  hidden  away  in  the  midst  of  other 
editorial  matter,  which  forms  the  only  authoritative 
biography  of  Jeremy  Taylor. 

Since  Eden's  day,  no  Life  of  Taylor  has  been  issued 
which  can  be  named  as  having  any  independent  value. 
For  the  collection  of  documents  and  quotation  of 
authorities,  his  still  remains  the  one  entirely  indis- 
pensable publication  dealing  with  the  career  of  the 


viii  JEREMY  TAYLOR 

Bishop.  But,  in  the  course  of  the  fifty  years  which 
have  elapsed  since  Eden  put  down  his  pen,  the  history 
of  the  seventeenth  century  has  been  greatly  elucidated. 
At  various  points  his  narrative  needs  to  be  enlarged 
and  corrected  in  detail,  and  it  is  with  no  sentiment  but 
one  of  gratitude  to  Eden,  and  admiration  of  his 
scholarship,  that  the  writer  of  this  volume  feels  that  the 
time  has  arrived  for  a  more  minute,  and  a  more  con- 
secutive biography  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  In  particular, 
the  labour  of  Ulster  church  antiquaries  has  discovered, 
and  has  published  in  various  fugitive  forms,  a  great 
deal  about  the  Bishop's  Irish  experiences  which  could 
not  be  known  to  Heber  or  to  Eden.  These  have  been 
well  used  in  the  short  summary  of  Taylor's  life,  con- 
tributed by  the  Rev.  T.  B.  Johnstone  to  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography. 

It  is  necessary,  however,  to  speak  of  an  element  in 
the  biography  of  Jeremy  Taylor  which  has  hitherto 
been  accepted  in  every  account  of  his  life,  and  which 
I  have  slowly  and  reluctantly  been  obliged  to  reject. 
When  Heber  was  collecting  material  for  the  1822 
edition,  he  was  favoured  with  some  manuscripts  which 
he  described  as  "  among  the  most  interesting  hitherto 
recovered  concerning  Bishop  Taylor's  private  con- 
cerns." They  purported  to  be  the  papers  of  William 
Todd  Jones  of  Homra,  who  had  been  occupied  all  his 
life,  so  it  was  averred,  in  collecting  documents  for  a 
biography  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  from  whom  he  was 
lineally  descended  "  in  the  fifth  degree."  Mr.  Jones 


PREFATORY  NOTE  ix 

died  suddenly,  in  1818,  by  being  thrown  out  of  his 
carriage,  when  all  his  notes  and  manuscripts  were 
found  to  have  absolutely  vanished.  In  a  mysterious 
way,  however,  some  of  them,  and  particularly  remin- 
iscences said  to  have  been  contained  in  a  letter  written 
in  1732  by  a  Lady  Wray,  said  to  have  been  a  grand- 
daughter of  Jeremy  Taylor,  were  eventually  placed  in 
Heber's  hands.  Heber  did  not  print  them  verbatim, 
probably  because  he  saw  that  in  many  particulars  it 
was  impossible  that  they  could  be  correct.  Many  of 
the  statements  which  he  did  pass  were  quietly  ex- 
punged later  on  by  Eden,  who  evidently  could  not 
tell  what  to  make  of  Lady  Wray.  But  many  more 
have  hitherto  been  repeated,  until  they  form  part  of 
Taylor's  accepted  biography. 

In 'very  careful  examination  of  what  remains  of 
Lady  Wray's  reminiscences,  I  have  gradually  come  to 
the  startling  conclusion  that  they  are  apocryphal,  and 
my  narrative  is  accordingly  deprived  of  some  romantic, 
but  ridiculous  incidents.  In  one  or  two  cases  I  have 
shown  the  accepted  story  to  be  preposterous ;  in  others 
I  have  simply  dropped  it  out  of  the  record.  This 
is  not  the  place  to  examine  the  whole  of  this  curious 
and  disconcerting  business  of  Lady  Wray's  pretended 
traditions,  but  I  hope  elsewhere  to  do  so  in  detail. 
I  have  no  doubt  left  in  my  own  mind  that  the  whole 
thing  was  a  mystification  or  hoax,  by  which  Heber  was 
deceived.  The  probable  origin  of  this  strange  fraud  it 
is  perhaps  too  late  to  conjecture,  and  it  is  always 


x  JEREMY  TAYLOR 

possible  that  the  letter  of  May  31,  1732,  may  have 
existed,  and  may  even  have  been  written  in  good  faith, 
though  in  that  case  with  a  recklessness  of  ignorance 
positively  amazing.  For  practical  purposes,  it  is  time 
that  it  should  cease  to  be  quoted  among  authorities 
for  the  biography  of  Jeremy  Taylor. 

E.  G. 

October  1903. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH   .        .        .       .  .        .        1 

CHAPTER   II 
THE  CIVIL  WAR 24 

CHAPTER   III 
RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE      .        .  .        .66 

CHAPTER    IV 
YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION 106 

CHAPTER    V 

PORTMORE  .  .  .  .     '      .  .  .  .      148 

CHAPTER    VI 
DROMORE •  *  .     .        .        .     184 

CHAPTER    VII 
TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY  .        .        .        .211 

INDEX  ,    229 


xi 


JEEEMY   TAYLOB 

CHAPTEE    I 

CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

(1613-1642) 

KEGARDING  the  ancestry  of  Jeremy  Taylor  much  has 
been  conjectured  but  little  is  known.  During  the 
seventeenth  century  no  suggestion  was  made  that  his 
parentage  had  been  other  than  obscure  and  simple. 
But  in  1732  his  granddaughter,  Lady  Wray,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  stated  that  the  family  held  a  respectable 
rank  among  the  smaller  gentry  of  Gloucestershire, 
'where  they  had  possessed  for  many  generations  an 
estate  in  the  parish  of  Frampton-on-Severn.'  There 
has  been  no  confirmation  of  this  statement ;  but  another 
pretension  of  Lady  Wray's  has  proved  irresistible  by  all 
Jeremy  Taylor's  biographers,  although  close  examina- 
tion shows  it  no  less  devoid  of  basis.  She  said  that 
Nathaniel  Taylor,  the  father  of  the  bishop,  'was  the  lineal 
descendant  of  Dr.  Eowland  Taylor,'  the  martyr.  This 
is  so  delightful  a  supposition  that  no  one  has  opposed 
it ;  and  Heber  even  found  '  a  filial  fondness  '  in  the  way 
in  which  Jeremy  speaks  of  Rowland  in  An  Apology 
for  Liturgy.  He  praises  him  enthusiastically,  it  is 
true,  but  it  would  be  hard  if  we  were  supposed  to 

A 


2  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

claim  kinship  with  all  of  whom  we  write  in  terms  of 
admiration. 

If  Nathaniel  Taylor  was  '  the  lineal  descendant '  of 
Cranmer's  famous  chaplain,  who  was  burned  at  the 
stake,  by  Bonner's  command,  in  1555,  he  could  only 
have  been  his  grandson,  and  Edmund  Taylor,  the 
churchwarden,  must  have  been  one  of  Eowland  Taylor's 
four  surviving  children.  But  if  the  relationship  was 
so  close — and  dates  forbid  our  making  it  more  remote 
— how  are  we  to  explain  the  fact  that  in  the  discreet 
Cambridge  household,  where  three  generations  worked 
humbly  side  by  side,  the  glory  of  descending  so  recently 
and  directly  from  a  prominent  local  celebrity  was  not 
sedulously  claimed1?  We  may,  I  am  afraid,  depend 
upon  it  that  if  Jeremy  Taylor  had  been  the  great- 
grandson  of  the  martyr,  it  would  not  have  been  left 
to  Lady  Wray  to  be  the  first  to  inform  us.  But  Taylor 
himself  seems  to  lay  a  vague  claim  to  gentility.  He 
used  a  seal  with  the  arms  '  Ermine,  on  a  chief,  indented, 
sable,  three  escallops,  or :  the  crest  a  lion  rampant, 
issuant,  ermine,  having  between  his  paws  a  ducal 
coronet,  or ' :  these  are  also  engraved  on  his  portraits. 
This  is  the  coat  confirmed  to  a  certain  Roger  Taylor, 
in  1614,  but  by  what  right  the  bishop  assumed  it,  if 
he  did  so,  remains  quite  unknown.  In  1651  he  asked 
Dugdale  for  information  about  this  coat  of  arms,  but 
we  know  not  what  reply  the  antiquary  made.  Where 
conjectures  are  so  prevalent,  I  wonder  that  no  one  has 
sought  to  find  a  tie  between  the  barber's  son  and  the 
eminent  Dr.  Thomas  Taylor,  who  was  standing  'as  a 
brazen  wall  against  popery,'  and  teaching  Hebrew  at 
Christ's  College,  within  a  stone's-throw  of  Nathaniel 
Taylor's  shop,  all  through  the  boyhood  of  Jeremy. 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  3 

When  gifts  and  graces  abound  so  signally  as  they  did 
in  the  person  of  the  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  it 
is  only  human  to  suppose  that  they  must  be  inherited. 

JEREMY  TAYLOR  sprang  from  a  respectable  Cambridge 
family  of  the  lower  middle  class.  His  grandfather, 
Edmund  Taylor,  had  been  churchwarden  of  the  parish 
of  Trinity,  certainly  since  1589.  The  churchwarden's 
son  Nathaniel  married  Mary  Dean  in  1605,  and  they 
had  six  children,  of  whom  the  subject  of  this  memoir 
was  the  fourth  child,  and  the  third  son.  According 
to  tradition,  the  house  in  which  the  Taylors  lived  was 
that  later  known  as  the  Black  Bull,1  opposite  Trinity 
Church,  and  here  doubtless  Jeremy  Taylor  was  born. 
About  the  date  of  this  event  an  uncertainty  rests. 
He  was  baptized  on  the  15th  of  August  1613,  but  it 
was  found  to  have  been  suggested  by  his  Irish  con- 
temporary, Sir  James  Ware,  in  his  posthumous  papers, 
that  Taylor  was,  really,  at  least  two  years  old  at 
the  time.  The  immediate  reason  for  such  a  supposi- 
tion will  presently  appear ;  but  it  must  be  said  at  once 
that  to  accept  it  would  be  to  dislocate  the  whole 
record  of  Jeremy's  brothers  and  sister,  who  appear  on 
the  registers  at  regular  intervals  of  two  years.  From 
earliest  infancy  the  future  bishop  seems  to  have  been 
singularly  precocious.  His  father,  Nathaniel  Taylor, 
was  a  barber  by  trade.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he 
belonged  to  the  higher  grade  of  barber-surgeon;  but 

1  In  his  Virgidemiarum  of  1597,  where  Joseph  Hall  celebrates 
twelve  leading  hostelries  of  Cambridge  as  symbolical  of  the 
signs  of  the  Zodiac,  he  includes  the  Black  Bull  and  the 
Wrestlers,  both  afterwards  identified  with  Jeremy  Taylor. 
This  may  be  the  'creeping  into  every  blind  taphouse,'  for 
which  Milton  reproves  Hall. 


4  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

he  was  a  man  of  education,  and  the  son  was  'solely 
grounded  in  grammar  and  mathematics '  by  his  father. 

Early  in  the  childhood  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  Dr.  Stephen 
Perse,  a  fellow  and  bursar  of  Caius  College,  who  had 
large  landed  property  in  Cambridge,  died,  leaving  a 
will  by  which  his  town  and  college  were  generously 
benefited.  Among  other  charges,  his  executors  were 
directed  to  buy  certain  grounds  and  tenements  on 
which  to  erect  a  convenient  free  grammar  school  for 
the  use  of  a  hundred  scholars.  The  original  Perse 
School,  which  existed  until  about  sixty  years  ago,  and 
stood  in  what  was  called  Luthburne  Lane,  where  the 
Cavendish  Laboratory  now  stands,  was  finished  and 
opened  in  1619,  and  its  first  master  was  Thomas  Lover- 
ing,  a  graduate  of  Pembroke  College.  Hither,  and  to  the 
teaching  of  this  excellent  master,  who  was  said  to  make 
learning  so  attractive  to  his  pupils  that  they  became 
"  Minerva's  darlings,"  Jeremy  Taylor  passed  at  the  age 
of  six;  he  was  probably  one  of  the  original  scholars 
when  the  grammar  school  was  opened.  About  1621 
the  barber  and  his  family  moved  to  a  house  afterwards 
known  as  the  Wrestlers'  Inn,  in  Petty  Cury,  a  few 
doors  from  their  earlier  home,  and  a  little  nearer  the 
Perse  School. 

Jeremy  Taylor  spent  seven  years  at  school,  and  then 
proceeded  to  Gronville  and  Caius  College,  where  he  was 
admitted  as  a  sizar  on  the  18th  of  August  1626.  Here 
we  are  confronted  with  a  puzzle,  for  the  admission- 
book  states  that  he  was  at  the  time  in  the  fifteenth 
year  of  his  age.  As  a  fact  he  could  but  very  recently 
have  entered  his  fourteenth.  The  book  goes  on  to 
prove  itself  of  slight  authority  in  the  matter  of  dates, 
by  saying  that  Jeremy  had  attended  the  Perse  School 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  5 

for  some  ten  years,  whereas  that  institution  had  been 
in  existence  for  no  more  than  seven.  We  may  dis- 
regard these  erroneous  entries,  merely  noticing  that 
the  rumour  of  Taylor's  being  older  than  he  supposed 
is  doubtless  founded  upon  them,  and  upon  the  miracle 
of  his  precocious  scholarship,  for  he  was  ripe  for  the 
university  before  custom  would  allow  of  his  admittance. 
Kust,  his  faithful  friend  and  earliest  biographer,  cor- 
rectly records  that  he  entered  college  as  soon  as  he  was 
thirteen  years  of  age. 

In  leaving  school,  Jeremy  Taylor  did  not  deprive 
himself  of  the  patronage  of  Stephen  Perse.  There  had 
of  late  years  been  a  great  expansion  of  the  University 
of  Cambridge  and  a  corresponding  lack  of  accommoda- 
tion. By  his  admirable  will,  Dr.  Perse  relieved  that 
pressure  so  far  as  his  own  college  was  concerned,  by 
founding  six  fellowships  and  six  scholarships,  and  by 
leaving  money  to  build  lodgings  and  chambers  for  the 
holders  of  these,  and  for  many  other  persons.  In  1617 
the  Perse  buildings  rose  on  the  north  side  of  the 
entrance-court  of  the  college,  on  ground  which  Perse 
had  bought  from  Trinity.  The  beautiful  symbolism 
of  the  gates  of  Caius — which  was  destroyed  and 
rendered  absurd  by  the  manipulations  of  1869 — was 
still  in  full  force.  When  Jeremy  Taylor  came  from 
the  barber's  shop  in  Petty  Cury,  across  the  Market 
Place  and  by  St.  Mary's,  he  would  enter,  as  a  youthful 
sizar  should,  at  the  Gate  of  Humility  (which  then 
opened  into  what  is  now  Trinity  Street,  opposite  St. 
Michael's  Church),  and  would  turn  to  the  right  across 
Brick  Court.  The  building,  which  was  his  home  from 
1626  until  1635,  was  one  of  the  most  agreeable  in  the 
university.  Dr.  Perse's  bequest  had  been  ample,  and 


6  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  new  chambers  were  roomy  and  convenient.  There 
were  two  stories,  containing  sets  of  studies,  and  oaken 
staircases  led  up  to  a  third  story  of  garrets  or,  as  they 
were  called,  "excelses."  The  chambers  looked  out  on 
St.  Michael's  Lane  in  front ;  at  the  back,  across  Brick 
Court,  to  the  Gonville  buildings  and  to  the  chapel, 
which  was  being  enlarged  just  when  Jeremy  Taylor 
finally  left  college.  On  either  side  the  light  fell 
through  casements,  provided  with  good  Burgundy 
glass  in  small,  well-soldered  lozenges.  All  was  com- 
fortable, in  the  simple  sense  of  the  time;  even  the 
excelses,  in  one  of  which  Taylor  doubtless  found  his 
first  lodging,  were  well  equipped. 

Of  the  nine  years  which  the  future  bishop  spent  at 
college  we  know  little.  Within  the  local  circle  his 
grace  and  tact  and  earnestness  won  the  admiration  of 
his  companions.  We  are  told  that  the  impression  he 
produced  was  such  that  "had  he  lived  among  the 
ancient  pagans  he  had  been  ushered  into  the  world 
with  a  miracle,  and  swans  must  have  danced  and  sung 
at  his  birth."  He  was  "a  great  hero"  in  the  ranks  of 
college  scholarship,  and  was  looked  upon  as  "no  less 
than  the  son  of  Apollo,  the  god  of  wisdom  and  elo- 
quence." His  tutor  was  Thomas  Batchcroft,  a  strong 
royalist,  who  became  Master  of  the  college,  and  was 
ultimately  ejected  by  the  Parliamentarians.  To  his 
teaching  we  may  attribute  Taylor's  earliest  leanings  to 
the  king's  cause.  The  boy's  progress  was  steady  and 
rapid:  he  matriculated  on  the  17th  of  March  1627, 
was  elected  a  Perse  scholar  at  Michaelmas  of  the  follow- 
ing year,  took  his  degree  early  in  his  eighteenth  year, 
and  was  elected  a  Perse  fellow  at  the  age  of  twenty. 
He  was  a  man,  Rust  tells  us,  long  before  he  was  of 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  7 

age,  and  had  known  "of  the  state  of  childhood  little 
more  than  its  innocency  and  pleasantness." 

In  the  course  of  his  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  Jeremy 
Taylor  remarked,  twelve  years  after  he  left  college, 
that  "education  is  so  great  and  so  invincible  a  pre- 
judice, that  he  who  masters  the  inconvenience  of  it  is 
more  to  be  commended  than  he  can  justly  be  blamed 
that  complies ' with  it."  His  own  career  was  a  com- 
ment on  this  passage.  No  one  was  ever  more  incon- 
venienced than  he  by  the  prejudice  of  that  education 
which  he  received  at  Cambridge,  and  few  have  tried 
more  manfully  to  master  it.  But  the  very  narrow  circle 
of  minds  among  whom  he  was  trained  at  college  were 
filled  with  the  passion  of  prerogative  government  in 
Church  and  State,  and  the  duty  of  upholding  it  by  all 
the  apparatus  of  applied  patristic  literature.  In  a 
less  intellectual  and  more  physical  sense,  the  laborious 
youth  of  Taylor  presents  itself  to  us  as  repressed 
within  such  limits  as  are  now  not  endurable  by  an 
agricultural  labourer.  From  the  barber's  shop  in  Petty 
Cury  to  the  Perse  School,  thence  to  Caius  College,  and 
thence  back  to  the  shop,  this  is  a  round  which  can  be 
calmly  made  in  fifteen  minutes,  yet  it  comprises  all  we 
know  of  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  life  of  Jeremy 
Taylor.  During  the  greater  part  of  his  college  career, 
Milton,  George  Herbert,  Fuller,  Crashaw,  and  Henry 
More  were  inmates  of  the  same  university.  Jeremy 
Taylor  may  well  have  brushed  against  the  sleeves  of 
each  of  them  as  he  passed  along  the  narrow  streets 
of  Cambridge.  But  not  one  of  their  lives  touched  his ; 
not  one  thought  of  theirs  diverted  him  for  a  moment 
from  his  solitary  course  of  study. 

An  accident  broke  up  the  stillness  of  Taylor's  seques- 


8  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

tered  life,  and  flung  him  into  the  world.  In  1633, 
being  below  the  canonical  age,  he  took  holy  orders, 
and  in  1634  became  a  master  of  arts.  His  chamber- 
fellow  (the  usual  arrangement  was  that  two  graduates 
slept  in  large  beds  in  the  outer  chamber  of  each  set 
of  rooms,  in  the  company  of  two  scholars  in  smaller 
beds,  which  in  the  daytime  were  pushed  out  of  sight 
below  the  larger),  a  Rev.  Thomas  Eisden,  three  years  his 
senior,  was  engaged  as  a  preacher  at  St.  Paul's.  Being 
prevented  from  carrying  out  his  duties,  Eisden  per- 
suaded Jeremy  Taylor  to  go  up  to  London  and  preach 
in  his  place.  It  is  evident  that  the  younger  man  must 
already,  perhaps  in  the  college  chapel,  have  proved  his 
aptitude  for  public  speaking,  since  at  Michaelmas  1634 
he  was  appointed  by  the  Master  to  be  prselector  in 
rhetoric.  At  all  events,  he  proceeded  to  St.  Paul's  in 
Eisden's  place  and  preached  on  successive  occasions  "to 
the  admiration  and  astonishment  of  his  auditory."  His 
success  was  instantaneous,  and  his  sermons  the  sensa- 
tion of  the  moment;  it  became  the  fashion  to  go  to 
hear  this  young  Mr.  Taylor  from  Cambridge.  We  are 
told  that  "  by  his  florid  and  youthful  beauty,  and  sweet 
and  pleasant  air,  and  sublime  and  raised  discourses,  he 
made  his  hearers  take  him  for  some  young  angel,  newly 
descended  from  the  visions  of  glory."  No  one  had 
preached  in  this  way  since  the  divine  Dr.  Donne, 
occupant  of  that  very  pulpit,  had  died  three  years 
before. 

We  have  in  all  probability  reached  the  autumn  of 
1634,  and  the  opening  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  twenty -second 
year.  He  had  now  the  fatal  fortune  of  attracting  the 
favour  of  the  most  powerful  and  the  most  unlucky 
man  in  England.  The  fame  of  the  new  star,  that 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  9 

already  "outshone"  all  the  rest  of  the  ecclesiastical 
firmament,  came  to  the  ears  of  Laud,  and  Jeremy 
Taylor  was  commanded  to  preach  before  his  Grace. 
If  Laud  had  questioned  the  reports  which  had  reached 
him,  he  doubted  no  longer.  He  frankly  recognised  the 
genius  of  the  astonishing  youth  with  wonder  and  satis- 
faction. Among  all  Laud's  faults,  a  disdain  of  learning 
and  subtlety  has  never  been  enumerated;  he  set  himself 
at  once  to  draw  music  from  an  instrument  so  delicate 
and  rich,  and  already  attuned  so  carefully  to  the  note 
of  prerogative.  This  was  a  critical  time  in  Laud's 
career;  since  August  1633  he  had  been  Primate  of 
England,  and  the  threads  of  the  whole  ecclesiastical 
system  were  in  his  hand.  He  was  at  length  enabled 
by  vigorous  administration  of  the  ecclesiastical  law 
to  treat  the  extreme  section  of  the  Puritans  with 
unmitigated  severity.  He  was  drawing  the  cords  of 
discipline  with  more  and  more  angry  impatience 
around  every  limb  of  the  unfortunate  English  Church, 
and  those  who  resisted  him  had  to  fly,  as  best  they 
might,  to  Holland,  to  Maryland,  or  to  Massachusetts. 

For  the  next  two  years  we  know  nothing  of  the 
fortunes  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  except  that  he  lived  under 
the  protection  and  guidance  of  Laud.  Rust  has  pre- 
served a  pleasant  anecdote  of  the  youth's  early  con- 
versation with  his  patron.  The  archbishop,  after 
hearing  him  preach,  very  graciously  admitted  that  his 
"discourse  was  beyond  exception,"  and  even  "beyond 
imitation."  But  "the  wise  prelate  thought  him  too 
young,"  and  indeed  twenty-two  years  is  but  a  modest 
age  for  a  divine.  Jeremy  Taylor  proved  his  wit,  and, 
if  we  consider  the  circumstances,  his  courage,  by  reply- 
ing that  he  humbly  begged  his  Grace  to  pardon  that 


10  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

fault  of  youth,  and  promised  "if  he  lived  he  would 
mend  it."  It  is  certain  that  Laud  was  greatly  pleased 
with  him,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  his 
favour  ever  flagged.  It  has  been  often  said  that  Laud 
could  not  appreciate  geniality  in  others,  yet  he  recog- 
nised it  in  Juxon  and  in  Taylor.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
safer  to  say,  that  he  neither  appreciated  it  nor  heeded 
it  in  those  whose  views  in  any  measure  differed  from 
his  own,  but  it  seems  as  though  he  recognised  the 
importance  of  graceful  manners  in  men  who  were 
zealously  employed  in  his  work. 

This  year,  1635,  marked  the  height  of  Laud's  suc- 
cess. "Without  imagination  or  the  power  of  looking 
forward,  ignorant  of  the  mainsprings  of  human  action, 
led  on  by  the  desire  to  do  what  in  his  contracted 
earnestness  he  deemed  to  be  right,  at  whatever  cost  to 
himself  or  others,  the  abyss  was  already  opening  before 
him.  But  he  had  little  conception  of  it.  He  thought 
that  he  was  conquering  all  along  the  line  of  opposition, 
warding  off  Rome  on  the  one  hand,  crushing  Puritan 
nonconformity  on  the  other.  In  the  glorious  task  he 
had  set  himself,  he  needed  aiders  and  abettors.  He 
could  not  begin  too  early  to  train  labourers  for  his 
vineyard.  Fresh  Juxons  and  Wrens  and  Montagus 
must  be  trained  to  carry  on  the  irresistible  policy  of 
Thorough;  where  there  was  any  splendour  of  talent 
and  virtue  in  the  English  Church  it  must  be  captured 
young,  and  be  shielded  from  caprice.  Two  years  were 
to  pass  before  it  was  brought  home  to  that  stubborn 
and  rigorous  nature  that  he  might  fail  in  his  purpose, 
and  might  drag  down  in  his  fall  those  institutions  of 
monarchy  and  Episcopacy  which  he  loved  so  sincerely. 

Meanwhile  the  juvenile  Jeremy  Taylor  was  but  one, 


I.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  11 

even  if  the  most  brilliantly  gifted,  of  the  youthful 
divines  of  promise  whom  it  was  the  archbishop's  duty 
to  train  for  the  work  of  repression  and  reform.  We 
do  not  know  whether  Laud  permitted  him  to  return 
to  Cambridge,  or  whether  he  brought  him  to  London ; 
Taylor  did  not  vacate  his  fellowship  at  Caius  College 
until  Lady  Day  1636.  Laud's  admiration  of  the  young 
man's  genius  did  not  blind  him  to  his  immaturity;  and 
the  "  young  angel,  newly  descended  from  the  visions 
of  glory,"  required  careful  training  in  the  more  mun- 
dane and  instant  parts  of  ecclesiastical  discipline.  To 
the  prosaic  mind  of  Laud,  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that 
the  ecstatic  dream,  the  coloured  reverie  of  Taylor, 
would  greatly  appeal.  He  would  admire  it,  no  doubt, 
and  love  the  holy  and  charming  young  proficient,  but 
he  would  see  a  danger  in  it.  The  great  thing  was  the 
cause  of  Thorough.  In  this  was  Taylor  sound  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  must  be  that,  so  far  as 
we  can  discern,  Taylor  was  absolutely  sound.  He  had 
none  of  the  spirit  of  a  revolutionary;  his  nature, 
reverential  and  timid,  accepted  the  authority  before  him 
without  question.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  arch- 
bishop took  Taylor  with  him  on  those  metropolitan 
visitations  which  he  had  lately  started.  It  is  certain 
that  he  found  him,  at  present,  too  rhetorical  and 
imaginative  for  his  practical  purposes,  and  decided,  in 
language  which  betrayed  an  affectionate  pride  in  so 
candid  and  docile  a  disciple,  that  it  was  "  for  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  world,  that  such  mighty  parts  should 
be  afforded  better  opportunities  of  study  and  improve- 
ment than  a  course  of  constant  preaching  would  allow 
of";  he  determined  that  Taylor  should  settle  at 
Oxford.  It  has  been  thought  surprising,  and  compli- 


12  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

mentary  neither  to  the  learning  nor  the  loyalty  of 
Cambridge,  that  Laud  should  have  chosen  for  this 
purpose  the  other  university.  But  this  shows  a  failure 
to  comprehend  the  special  meaning  attached  by  the 
archbishop  to  "  study  and  improvement."  What 
Laud  designed  was  that  Taylor  should  enter  the  circle 
at  Oxford  which  was  being  carefully  prepared  as  a 
forcing-house  for  the  ideas  which  alone  seemed  salu- 
tary to  his  bitter  pertinacity  of  purpose. 

So  completely  had  one  society  in  Oxford  become 
the  centre  of  Laud's  system  of  propaganda,  that  Rust 
actually  says  that  at  this  juncture  the  archbishop 
placed  Jeremy  Taylor  "in  his  own  college  of  All  Souls 
in  Oxford,"  although,  of  course,  in  the  exact  and  usual 
sense,  Laud  was  not  even  a  member  of  that  college. 
On  the  23rd  of  October  1635,  he  wrote  from  Lambeth 
to  the  Warden  and  Fellows  of  All  Souls  recommending 
to  them  "Mr.  Jeremiah  Taylor,"  as  "an  honest  man 
and  a  good  scholar,"  and  heartily  praying  that  he 
should  be  elected  to  the  fellowship  left  vacant  by  the 
enforced  retirement  of  a  Mr.  Osborne,  for  whom  Laud 
provided  elsewhere.  It  appears  from  the  archbishop's 
letter,  that  Taylor  had  already  been  incorporated  into 
Oxford,  with  an  ad  eundem  degree,  at  University 
College.  Laud  writes  in  his  customary  dictatorial 
tone,  and  it  is  certain  that  formal  difficulties  presented 
themselves,  Gilbert  Sheldon,  the  Warden  of  All  Souls, 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  protesting 
against  the  high-handed  procedure  of  Laud  in  this 
delicate  matter.  Jeremy  Taylor,  however,  after  a 
hurried  and  probably  final  visit  to  Cambridge,  presented 
himself  at  Oxford,  and  was  inspected  by  the  fellows  of 
All  Souls.  They  fell  under  his  irresistible  charm,  and 


I.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  13 

pronounced  him  "a  person  of  most  wonderful  parts, 
and  like  to  be  an  ornament "  to  their  society.  The 
formal  difficulty  was  avoided  by  holding  no  election, 
but  Laud,  in  his  right  as  visitor  of  the  college,  nomi- 
nated his  protege  to  the  vacant  probationary  fellowship 
at  All  Souls  on  the  3rd  of  November  1635,  the  society 
being  "almost  unanimous"  in  welcoming  him.  On 
the  14th  of  January  1636,  he  was  admitted  a  "true 
and  perpetual  fellow  "  of  the  college. 

Here,  then,  for  two  years  we  have  to  think  of  him, 
sedately  preparing  for  the  work  which  seemed  to  lie 
before  him,  and  learning,  as  Anthony  a  Wood  says, 
what  would  "enable  him  to  write  casuistically."  His 
native  eloquence  and  fancy  were  checked  during  this 
period  of  preparation  in  the  school  of  Thorough.  It 
was  another  Appello  Ccesarem  that  his  impetuous  patron 
wished  him  to  produce,  and  not  a  Holy  Dying  or  a 
Great  Exemplar.  Laud  took  care  not  to  lose  sight  of 
him;  he  made  the  young  divine  his  chaplain,  and 
doubtless  often  summoned  him  to  Lambeth,  that  he 
might  observe  the  growth  of  his  mind  and  strengthen 
his  resolution. 

Several  interesting  men  are  known  to  have  come 
into  contact  with  Jeremy  Taylor  during  his  early 
years  at  Oxford.  His  intimacy  with  Franciscus  a 
Sancta  Clara  was  close,  and  the  memory  of  it  developed 
after  his  departure  into  an  Oxford  legend.  Sancta 
Clara,  whose  real  name  was  Christopher  Davenport, 
a  man  of  many  pseudonyms,  was  a  missionary  friar, 
who  had  lately  arrived  from  Douai.  He  was  a  subtle 
and  highly  adroit  personage,  whose  aim  in  life  was  to 
reconcile  the  English  Church  with  Eome,  and  to  do  so 
by  the  gentlest  and  most  insinuating  of  flatteries.  He 


14  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

conciliated  society  with  success ;  the  king  became  more 
than  tolerant  to  Sancta  Clara ;  the  queen  took  him  as 
her  chaplain;  he  grew  intimate  with  many  of  the 
Anglican  bishops,  and  Laud  himself  was  afterwards 
accused  by  the  Puritans  of  encouraging  him.  In 
slightly  later  years  than  we  have  yet  reached,  the 
graceful  Franciscan  pervaded  Oxford,  carrying  with 
him  a  purpose  of  courtly  casuistry  and  insidious  en- 
croachment. That  he  paid  particular  attention  to  the 
youthful  fellow  of  All  Souls,  and  was  careful  to  culti- 
vate his  conversation,  was  a  proof  of  the  signal  promise 
already  given  by  the  nature  of  Jeremy  Taylor. 

A  more  interesting  acquaintance  offered  itself  to 
Taylor  at  Oxford.  On  arriving  there,  he  found  the 
university  animated  by  the  presence  of  a  spirit  of 
wonderful  brightness,  and  a  conscience  personally  dis- 
interested to  a  rare  degree,  but  fretful,  litigious,  and 
violently  swayed  by  every  wind  of  doctrine.  This  was 
the  extraordinary  William  Chillingworth,  Laud's  god- 
son, who  had  gone  over  to  Rome,  and  had  actually 
retired  for  a  time  to  the  Jesuits'  college  in  Douai,  but 
who,  in  1631,  had  been  turned  again,  by  Laud's  corre- 
spondence, from  "a  doubting  Papist  into  a  confirmed 
Protestant."  A  wavering  and  sceptical  judgment,  re- 
lentlessly lighted  by  what  was  doubtless  the  acutest  in- 
tellect at  that  time  applied  in  England  to  ecclesiastical 
matters,  Chillingworth's  love  of  dialectic  for  its  own 
sake  was  so  pronounced,  that  it  was  a  jest  in  Oxford 
that  he  might  be  seen  hurrying  up  and  down  in  Trinity 
Garden,  searching  for  somebody  to  dispute  with.  Thus 
Chillingworth  had  gone  in  and  out,  seeking  rest  and 
finding  none.  Laud,  who  admired  him,  and  humoured 
him  with  signal  patience,  was  doubtless  pleased  that 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  15 

his  younger  and  more  docile  friend  should  sharpen 
his  wits  against  the  keenest  intelligence  in  Oxford. 
And  by  1636,  Chilling  worth  was  already  partly  calm- 
ing himself  in  the  preparation  of  his  own  great  and 
famous  book. 

We  have  an  interesting  glimpse  of  Taylor  in  one 
of  Chillingworth's  letters  of  this  time,  written  during 
an  absence  from  Oxford,  in  which  he  begs  his  corre- 
spondent, or  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir  Henry)  Coventry,  to 
tell  Jeremy  Taylor  that  "  one  that  knows  him  " — that 
is  Chillingworth  himself — has  been  heard  to  "magnify 
him  exceedingly  for  other  things,  but  censure  him  for  " 
one,  namely  his  inattention  to  the  reasonings  of  others. 
This  keen  observer,  who  had  been  greatly  impressed 
by  the  young  divine's  ability,  was  nevertheless  struck 
by  his  neglect  of  the  arguments  of  his  opponent; 
"methinks,"  says  Chillingworth,  "he  wants  much  of 
the  ethical  part  of  a  discourser,  and  slights  too  much 
many  times  the  arguments  of  those  he  discourses  with." 
Taylor  was,  in  fact,  far  more  of  a  rhetorician  than  of  a 
casuist,  just  as  in  later  years  he  was  to  be  rather  a 
religious  man  of  letters  than  a  logical  theologian.  But 
the  terms  of  Chillingworth's  letter,  in  which  he  begs 
his  friend  to  delay  his  admonitior  long  enough  to 
prevent  Taylor  from  suspecting  who  his  critic  is,  and 
to  be  candid  with  the  utmost  gentleness,  prove  the 
high  affection  and  esteem  which  Taylor  inspired.  At 
his  own  college,  we  are  told,  "love  and  admiration  still 
waited  upon  him,"  and  the  appreciation  of  his  "extra- 
ordinary worth  and  sweetness"  was  universal.  No 
doubt,  had  Chillingworth  spoken  directly  to  Taylor 
about  his  want  of  interest  in  argument,  his  young 
friend  would  gently  and  gaily  have  returned  the  parry. 


16  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

We  know  that  the  dialectic  of  Oxford  churchmen 
seemed  dry  enough  to  him  in  later  years,  as  he  looked 
back  with  a  smile  to  the  days  when  he  listened  to 
"persons  of  great  understanding  oftentimes  so  amused 
with  the  authority  of  their  church,  that  it  is  pity  to 
see  them  sweat  in  answering  some  objections,  which 
they  know  not  how  to  do,  but  yet  believe  they  must, 
because  the  church  hath  said  it."  A  description  of 
Chillingworth,  too,  seems  to  have  hitherto  escaped 
notice  in  the  labyrinths  of  Taylor's  Dudor  Dubitantium : 
"I  knew  a  scholar  once  who  was  a  man  of  a  quick 
apprehension,  and  easy  to  receive  an  objection,  who 
when  he  read  the  Roman  doctors  was  very  much  of 
their  opinion,  and  as  much  against  them  when  he  read 
their  adversaries ;  but  kept  himself  to  the  religion  of 
his  country,  concerning  which  at  all  times  he  remem- 
bered that  there  were  rare  arguments  and  answers 
respectively,  though  he  could  not  then  think  upon 
them." 

With  his  twenty-fifth  year,  Taylor's  period  of  proba- 
tion came  to  a  close.  Laud  was  satisfied  with  the  success 
of  his  experiment,  and  gave  the  faithful  disciple  his  first 
rewards.  The  year  1638  was  critical  in  Taylor's  career. 
Laud  determined  on  one  of  those  complex  shiftings  by 
which  he  encouraged  his  followers,  and  was  vigilant  in 
pulling  up  those  weeds  of  Puritan  disaffection  which 
the  soil  of  England  was  now  "too  apt  to  nourish." 
The  valuable  incumbency  of  Uppingham,  in  Rutland- 
shire, had  been  held  since  1631  by  Dr.  Edward  Martin, 
President  of  Queens'  College,  and  one  of  Laud's  most 
faithful  supporters  at  Cambridge,  ultimately  Dean  of 
Ely.  Martin  never  resided  at  Uppingham,  where  the 
duty  was  performed  by  his  curate,  Peter  Hausted, 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  17 

a  small  dramatist  of  some  note,  author  of  The  Rival 
Friends.  Laud,  acting  in  the  name  of  Juxon,  who,  now 
that  he  was  Lord  High  Treasurer,  left  these  questions 
of  minor  preferment  to  his  friend  and  chief,  trans- 
ferred Martin  to  another  rich  sinecure,  that  of  Hough- 
ton  Conquest,  in  Bedfordshire,  and  on  the  23rd  of 
March  1638  instituted  Jeremy  Taylor  to  Uppingham. 
Taylor  was  not  inclined  to  leave  his  duties  to  be  per- 
formed by  a  curate,  and  Peter  Hausted,  who  had 
proved  himself  a  zealous  High  Churchman,  was  made 
rector  of  Much  Hadham  in  Herts;  he  died  a  little 
later,  in  the  dark  year  1645,  fighting  at  the  siege  of 
Banbury. 

Taylor  made  Uppingham  his  principal  place  of 
residence  for  about  four  years,  during  which  time 
the  entries  in  the  parish  books  testify  to  the  zeal 
with  which  he  carried  out  his  duties  as  rector.  The 
quiet  of  the  country  life,  far  from  the  wordy  contests 
of  Oxford,  was  a  great  consolation  to  his  spirit.  He 
was  now,  for  the  first  time,  able  to  cultivate  the 
things  that  he  loved  best,  the  reading  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  methods  by  which  the  contemplative 
spirit  can  suck  most  sweetness  from  that  honeycomb, 
namely,  as  he  says  himself,  industry,  meditation,  con- 
ference, the  human  arts  and  sciences,  and  whatever 
"  God  and  good  news  "  offer  as  a  reward  for  intellectual 
service.  Of  Taylor's  experiences  at  Uppingham  we 
know  very  little ;  doubtless  there  was  not  much  in  his 
sequestered  habits  to  record.  One  little  vignette  we 
possess,  like  a  peep  through  the  chink  of  a  door. 
Mrs.  Edward  Turner  of  Little  Dalby,  though  a  parson's 
wife,  was  on  her  road  to  Rome,  when  she  consulted 
Jeremy  Taylor  at  Uppingham.  He  took  her  into  his 

B 


18  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

study,  and  "did  enjoin  her  penance";  when  she  saw, 
and  in  spite  of  her  tendencies  was  shocked  at  the  sight, 
a  little  altar  with  a  crucifix  upon  it.  The  anecdote 
probably  dates  from  about  1640. 

The  conjectures  of  the  scandalised  Mrs.  Turner 
must  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth,  but  it  seems 
certain  that  about  this  time  Jeremy  Taylor,  like  so 
many  of  the  partisans  of  Thorough,  like  their  tremend- 
ous leader  himself,  was  suspected  of  a  tendency  to 
Popery.  It  was  difficult  to  hold  the  straight  high 
path  between  the  zealots  and  Kome.  The  very  stiffen- 
ing against  Puritans  made  the  English  priest  natur- 
ally lean  towards  ritual,  until,  as  the  egregious  John 
Bastwick  said,  in  1637,  the  Church  became  "as  full  of 
ceremonies  as  a  dog  is  full  of  fleas." 

Taylor's  main  intellectual  centre  was  still  at  Oxford, 
where  on  the  5th  of  November  1638  he  was  appointed 
to  preach  at  St.  Mary's  before  the  University  on  the 
anniversary  of  Guy  Fawkes's  Day.  Wood  gives  an 
account,  evidently  by  hearsay,  of  the  circumstances 
which  attended  the  delivery  of  this  sermon.  If  we 
are  to  believe  him,  Taylor  had  no  free  hand  in  the 
composition  of  his  address,  which  the  vice-chancellor 
first  commanded  him  to  prepare,  and  then  enlarged 
with  many  passages  of  his  own,  offensive  to  the  Eoman 
Catholics,  so  that  after  preaching  it  Taylor  had  to 
apologise  to  his  Roman  friends,  and  express  his  regret 
at  the  opinions  which  had  been  put  into  his  mouth. 
Wood's  authority  for  some  of  these  statements  was 
Sancta  Clara,  who  told  him  that  Jeremy  Taylor  had 
"several  times  expressed  some  sorrow  for  those  things 
he  had  said."  The  subtle  Franciscan  was  not  to  be 
trusted,  and  if  Wood  had  heard  Taylor's  sermon,  or 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  19 

had  read  it,  he  would  hardly  have  repeated  these 
remarks.  The  whole  address  bears  the  mark  of  one 
mind  and  one  voice.  There  is  every  probability, 
indeed,  that  the  gracious  divine,  meeting  his  Roman 
acquaintances  in  Oxford,  and  being  reproached  with 
his  attack  on  them,  would  cautiously  deprecate  the 
idea  of  any  personal  unfriendliness.  Further  than  this 
it  is  impossible  that  he  could  go.  The  terms  in  which 
he  afterwards  assures  us  that  at  no  moment  of  his  life 
was  he  tempted  to  acquiesce  in  the  Roman  doctrine 
are  too  explicit  to  be  overlooked. 

The  Sermon  on  Gunpowder  Treason  is  the  earliest 
composition  of  Taylor's  which  we  possess.  It  is  not 
a  sermon  in  the  modern  sense,  but  a  dissertation  on 
a  point  of  ecclesiastical  law  casuistically  treated ;  some- 
thing, we  may  say,  between  a  lecture  by  the  Dixie  Pro- 
fessor and  a  Hulsean  Lecture.  It  is  dedicated,  in  a 
strain  of  excessive  modesty,  to  Laud ;  and  the  preacher 
states  that  the  Vice-Chancellor  had  commanded  "a 
publication  of  these  very  short  and  sudden  meditations." 
He  speaks  as  one  whose  arguments  against  Rome  had 
long  attracted  the  notice  of  the  authorities,  until  the 
university  had  been  drawn  to  appoint  him  its  "  public 
voice "  in  a  discovery  of  the  king's  religious  enemies 
as  well  as  in  its  "  thanksgiving  "  to  Laud  himself.  So 
far  from  attacking  the  Romanists,  the  author  expresses 
a  lively  wish  not  to  seem  uncharitable,  and,  indeed,  it 
is  hard  to  tell  how  Sancta  Clara,  or  Panzani  himself, 
could  reasonably  object  to  a  word  in  the  dissertation. 
The  Sermon  on  Gunpowder  Treason  is  not  doctrinal :  it 
is  entirely  directed  to  one  legal  point,  the  assumed 
right  of  rebellion  against  heretical  princes;  and  the 
Jesuits  at  Oxford  would  have  been  crazy  to  complain 


20  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

of  an  official  Anglican  divine  for  resisting  this  particular 
assumption  of  theirs. 

The  style  of  this  address  is  dry  and  crabbed,  with 
that  incessant  quotation  from  Latin  authorities  which 
was  at  that  time  so  dangerous  a  vice  of  English  prose. 
In  only  a  single  instance  does  it  rise  above  the  common- 
place level  of  the  ecclesiastical  jurisprudence  of  the 
hour.  Near  the  close  we  find  one  paragraph  which 
prophesies  of  the  coming  greatness  of  the  writer : — 

"Now  after  such  a  sublimity  of  malic?,  I  will  not  instance 
in  the  sacrilegious  ruin  of  the  neighbouring  temples,  which 
needs  must  have  perished  in  the  flame,  nor  in  the  disturbing 
the  ashes  of  our  entombed  kings,  devouring  their  dead  rums 
like  sepulchral  dogs.  These  are  but  minutes,  in  respect  of 
the  ruin  prepared  for  the  living  temples." 

These  are  clumsy  phrases  and  halting  cadences,  but 
here  we  see  at  least,  trying  his  undeveloped  wings,  the 
cygnet  that  was  to  become  so  proud  and  magnificent 
a  swan. 

Jeremy  Taylor  was  now  settled  in  a  rising  fame  as 
well  as  fortune ;  assured  of  the  favour  of  the  party  in 
power,  he  had  a  right  to  expect  rapid  and  high  pro- 
motion. He  proceeded  to  form  for  himself  a  family. 
Towards  the  end  of  his  tutorial  work  at  Caius  College, 
he  had  taught  a  medical  student,  Edward  Langsdale, 
the  son  of  a  London  gentleman.  There  was  great 
sympathy  between  the  teacher  and  the  pupil,  who 
was  but  six  years  his  junior,  and  the  relation  ripened 
into  a  lifelong  friendship.  Edward  Langsdale,  who 
outlived  the  bishop,  became  a  physician  at  Gains- 
borough, and  on  the  27th  of  May  1639  Jeremy  Taylor 
married  his  sister,  Phoebe,  at  Uppingham.  Of  Phoebe 
Taylor  we  know  nothing,  save  that  she  bore  her  husband 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  21 

six  (if  not  seven)  children,  and  that  she  died  during  the 
time  of  their  retirement  in  Wales;  a  son,  William, 
having  died  at  Uppingham  in  May  1642.  There  has 
been  useless  speculation  as  to  the  reason  of  Phoebe 
Taylor's  obscurity,  but  she  was  doubtless  a  simple 
and  house-abiding  matron  of  whom  there  would  be 
little  to  record  and  no  one  to  retail  it.  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  somewhat  reserved  under  his  sweetness.  We 
know,  from  An  Apology  for  Liturgy,  that  he  did  not 
love  to  discuss  his  household  affairs;  he  was  one  of 
those  who  "  will  be  so  desirous  of  their  liberty  as  to 
preserve  that  in  private,  when  they  have  no  concern- 
ments but  their  own,  for  matter  of  order  or  scandal." 
Such  faint  indications  as  we  possess  point  to  an  un- 
ruffled domestic  felicity. 

Four  years  now  pass  in  which  we  are  unable  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  Taylor  further  than  what  the  formal 
registers  of  Uppingham  and  All  Souls  College  have  to 
offer  us.  In  his  parish  work  he  was  "a  rare  conductor 
of  souls,  and  knew  how  to  counsel  and  to  advise,  to 
solve  difficulties,  and  determine  cares,  and  quiet  con- 
sciences." In  all  this  pleasant  labour  he  was  certainly 
happier  than  in  exercising  the  casuistry  which  his  visits 
to  Oxford  forced  upon  him.  Nor  did  he  spare  his 
too  passionate  colleagues  the  lambency  of  his  humour, 
comparing  "their  subtilties  and  spinosities"  to  the 
feats  of  Don  Quixote.  He  "  would  make  sport  some- 
times with  the  romantic  sophistry  and  fantastic  adven- 
tures of  school-errantry."  It  seems  that  he  was  slow 
to  perceive  the  gathering  storm  of  cloud.  But  when 
his  great  patron  and  the  mainstay  of  his  fortunes  fell, 
he  must  have  been  stricken  with  alarm.  In  February 
1641  Laud  was  impeached  by  Sir  Harry  Vane;  on  the 


22  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

1st  of  March  he  was  sent  to  the  Tower ;  on  the  25th 
of  June  he  ceased  to  be  Chancellor  of  Oxford.  A 
little  later  all  his  rents  and  profits  as  Primate  were 
sequestered.  These  were  fatal  dates  in  the  career  of 
Jeremy  Taylor.  "  I  am  robbed  of  that  which  once  did 
bless  me,"  he  wrote,  and  all  the  house  of  his  hopes 
must  have  come  crashing  about  his  head. 

It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  hitherto  recognised 
in  the  Puritans  a  serious  danger.  He  had  paid  them 
little  attention ;  his  thoughts  and  arguments  had  been 
centred  on  the  advances  of  Rome.  No  doubt  he  con- 
sidered that  Laud  and  Juxon  were  perfectly  well  able 
to  keep  the  "sectaries"  in  order.  But  against  the 
policy  of  Thorough  had  arisen  that  of  Root-and-Branch, 
and  the  harshness  of  the  bishops  had  brought  about  its 
equally  violent  reaction.  It  was  probably  not  until 
1641  that  Taylor  realised  that  the  discipline  of  Juxon 
and  the  authority  of  Laud  had  been  strained  beyond 
bearing,  and  that,  in  fact,  they  were  going  to  be 
borne  no  longer.  The  scheme  of  church-government, 
in  implicit  obedience  to  which  the  whole  of  Taylor's 
placid  youth  had  been  spent,  suddenly  passed  from 
the  offensive  to  the  defensive  attitude.  He  could 
disregard  the  Puritan  advance  no  longer ;  he  had  to 
join  his  brethren  in  resisting  its  obtrusive  energy, 
step  by  step.  For  that  great  contention  was  now  to 
be  fought  out  to  a  definite  issue,  which  the  wise  poet, 
Samuel  Daniel,  had  foreseen  so  long  before,  when  he 
wrote,  in  his  Musophilus : — 

"  Sacred  Religion,  mother  of  form  and  fear, 

How  gorgeously  sometimes  dost  thou  sit  decked  ! 
What  pompous  vestures  do  we  make  thee  wear  ! 
What  stately  piles  we,  prodigal,  erect ! 


i.]  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  23 

How  sweet  perfum'd  thou  art !     How  shining  clear  ! 
How  solemnly  observ'd,  with  what  respect ! 

Another  time,  all  plain,  all  quite  threadbare, 
Thou  must  have  all  within,  'and  nought  without ; 

Sit  poorly  without  light,  disrob'd,  no  care 
Of  outward  grace  to  amuse  the  poor  devout ; 

Powerless,  unhallowed,  scarcely  men  can  spare 
The  necessary  rites  to  set  thee  out." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  CIVIL  WAR 

(1642-1649) 

AT  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War,  in  the  summer 
of  1642,  Jeremy  Taylor's  name  ceases  to  appear  in  the 
registers  of  Uppingham,  nor  does  it  recur  there  later. 
He  was  now  chaplain-in-ordinary  to  the  king,  and  in 
all  probability  he  joined  the  troops  when  the  standard 
was  raised  close  by  him,  at  Nottingham  (August  22). 
The  rectory  at  Uppingham  doubtless  continued  for 
some  twelve  months  more  to  be  occupied  by  his 
family,  since  it  was  their  legal  home,  and  there  was 
no  species  of  personal  danger  imminent  to  them  there. 
Moreover,  no  attempt  was  made  to  sequester  the 
living  until  May  1644.  Charles  I.  left  Nottingham 
for  Shrewsbury  in  September,  and  then  proceeded 
in  a  south-eastern  line  direct  for  Oxford,  which,  after 
the  indecisive  engagement  at  Edgehill,  he  reached 
at  the  end  of  October.  We  may  be  certain  that 
whether  Jeremy  Taylor  accompanied  the  king  on  the 
campaign,  or  awaited  his  arrival  at  Oxford,  he  took 
part  in  that  delusive  and  ironic  triumphal  entry 
"  amidst  the  plaudits  of  citizens  and  scholars,"  which 
closed  the  prologue  to  the  long  Civil  War. 

A  new  patron  now  arose,  to  take  the  place  of  the 

24 


CHAP,  ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  25 

fallen  Laud.  Amongst  those  who  joined  Charles  I.  at 
Oxford  in  November  1642  was  Sir  Christopher  Hatton, 
a  cousin  of  the  great  Chancellor.  This  gentleman  had 
possibly  been  acquainted  with  Jeremy  Taylor  at  Cam- 
bridge, since  he  was  at  Jesus  College  during  some  of 
the  years  which  Taylor  spent  at  Caius.  Still  more 
probably,  he  had  known  him  as  a  neighbour,  for 
Hatton's  residence,  Kirby  Hall,  although  on  the 
borders  of  Eockingham  Forest  in  Northamptonshire, 
was  but  a  few  miles  from  Uppingham.  Hatton  enjoyed 
at  this  time  "  a  great  reputation,"  as  Clarendon  him- 
self, who  disliked  him,  had  to  admit.  He  was  con- 
sidered a  person  of  high  judgment,  and  he  imposed 
himself  upon  Charles  I.,  who  frequently  deferred  to 
his  opinion,  and  showed  him  constant  favour.  For  a 
moment,  Hatton  seemed  about  to  become  a  very  pro- 
minent personage  in  England,  but  he  did  not  stand 
the  trial  of  adversity.  "In  a  few  years,  he  found  a 
way  utterly  to  lose  "  the  "reputation  he  had  made,  and 
in  his  old  age  he  was  discredited  and  obscure.  But 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  he  made  a  brilliant 
appearance,  and  the  very  best  fact  that  history  has 
preserved  about  him  is  that  for  six  or  seven  years 
he  was  a  liberal  patron  and  faithful  friend  to  Jeremy 
Taylor. 

The  king's  chaplain  was  by  this  time  in  the  thick 
of  the  intellectual  battle.  On  the  7th  of  September 
the  House  of  Commons  had  passed  a  resolution  for  the 
abolition  of  all  bishops,  and  the  Lords  had  ratified  the 
motion.  It  was  necessary  to  contend  immediately  with 
this  policy,  so  violent  and  monstrous  to  the  consciences 
of  half  of  the  king's  subjects.  Jeremy  Taylor  sat 
down  to  produce  that  work  of  his  which  is  commonly 


26  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

known  as  Episcopacy  Asserted,  the  actual  title  of  which, 
as  published  late  in  1642,  is  Of  the  Sacred  Order  of  Epi- 
scopacy. In  this,  Taylor's  second  book,  the  student  of 
literature  discovers  little  advance  in  style.  The  ex- 
cessive use  of  Latin  and  Greek  quotation  continues ; 
from  the  brief,  clear,  argumentative  statement  all 
rhetoric  and  all  ornament  are  excluded.  The  book  is 
more  a  paraphrase  of  authorities  and  a  compendium  of 
ruling  cases  than  a  specimen  of  independent  author- 
ship. The  original  edition  of  Episcopacy  Asserted  was 
dedicated  to  Hatton  in  a  prefatory  discourse,  in  which 
Taylor  distinctly  says  that  the  statesman  is  his  only 
resource  ;  "I  am  forced  upon  you."  He  has  found 
out  that  he  has  no  private  advantage  to  expect  from 
his  chaplaincy  to  the  king;  "my  person  must  not  go 
thither  to  sanctuary  unless  it  be  to  pay  my  devotion." 
It  is  to  Hatton  that  the  book  is  commended,  as  a 
"  tried  friend " ;  it  is  Hatton  who  must  be  to  its 
author  "a  refuge  for  my  need." 

The  attitude  of  the  young  casuist  is  one  of  surprised 
indignation  at  the  presumption  of  the  sectaries.  He 
cannot  believe  that  the  latter  will  be  supported  by  the 
country ;  "  it  is  the  honour  of  the  Church  of  England 
that  all  her  children  and  obedient  people  are  full  of 
indignation  against  rebels,  be  they  of  any  interest  or 
party  whatsoever."  But  as  he  proceeds  with  his  dis- 
quisition, events  are  running  faster  than  his  pen,  and 
he  lifts  his  eyes  from  the  page  to  see  all  Israel  scattered 
upon  the  mountains  as  sheep  that  have  no  shepherd. 
Yet  his  spirits  rise  again ;  he  thinks  that  the  authority 
and  seemliness  of  Episcopacy  have  only  to  be  made 
manifest  for  those  who  have  rebelled  to  lay  down 
their  arms  and  crave  for  pardon.  He  sets  himself  to 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  27 

prove,  with  a  myriad  of  instances  borrowed  from  "  the 
holy  primitives,"  that  "the  bishop  is  the  bond  and 
ligature  of  the  Church's  unity,"  and  "separation  from 
the  bishop  a  symbol  of  faction."  He  arrogates  "a 
capacity  to  the  bishops  "  to  undertake  charges  of  public 
trust, — "it  serves  the  King,  it  assists  the  Republic." 
He  attacks  with  scorn  "  the  white  and  watery  colours 
of  lay-elders."  It  is  not  probable  that  his  arguments 
convinced  a  single  Puritan  in  those  angry  days.  His 
proofs  of  the  necessity  of  absolute  forms  of  Church 
government  have  not  found  favour  with  later  theo- 
logians; even  Bishop  Heber,  an  enthusiast  for  the 
author,  dismisses  Episcopacy  Asserted  with  the  remark 
that  the  reasons  on  which  Taylor  rests  his  position 
are  as  unsound  as  the  position  itself  is  prima  facie 
questionable. 

The  treatise,  however,  served  its  controversial  pur- 
pose; it  closes,  in  particular,  with  a  freedom  and 
energy  of  writing  which  were  highly  appreciated  in 
the  Oxford  circle  of  Royalist  scholars.  On  the  1st  of 
November,  by  royal  mandate,  Taylor  received  the 
degree  of  doctor  of  divinity ;  and  early  in  the  follow- 
ing* year  he  was  presented  to  a  sinecure  which  was 
still  vaguely  within  the  influence  of  the  king,  that 
of  Overstone,  between  Northampton  and  Welling- 
borough.  It  is  not  improbable  that  this  appointment 
was  connected  with  his  friendship  with  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Northampton,  a  relation  which  seems  to 
have  escaped  the  notice  of  all  Jeremy  Taylor's  bio- 
graphers. But  Spencer  Compton,  second  Earl  of 
Northampton,  was  not  only  the  friend  of  Taylor,  but 
apparently  his  patron,  and  his  remarkable  influence 
on  the  literary  work  of  the  divine  will  be  mentioned 


28  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

later  on.  Of  this  Lord  Northampton  too  little  is 
preserved;  as  Clarendon  said,  he  was  "not  known 
until  his  evening."  After  living  a  retired  life  in  the 
enjoyment  of  his  great  wealth,  he  suddenly  developed 
remarkable  public  energy  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Civil  War.  Charles  I.  perceived  his  singular  import* 
ance,  and  in  November  1642,  after  the  battle  of  Edge- 
hill,  Northampton  was  put  in  charge  of  the  whole 
district  in  Northamptonshire  and  Oxfordshire  which 
surrounded  Banbury.  He  was  extremely  active,  until 
his  brilliant  career  was  cut  short,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
two,  at  the  battle  of  Hopton  Heath,  on  the  19th  of 
March  1643.  When  we  consider  that  Taylor  was  his 
valued  friend,  and  that  Overstone  was  within  what 
we  may  call  Lord  Northampton's  military  district,  it 
is  hard  to  believe  that  the  appointment  had  no  con- 
nection with  the  kindness  either  of  the  earl  or  of  his 
lady.  The  widowed  Countess  Mary — who  was  the 
daughter  of  the  poet  of  Bosworth  Field,  Sir  John 
Beaumont — remained  the  protector  of  Taylor,  and 
he  described  her  afterwards,  in  reference  to  her  kind- 
ness to  him,  as  "hugely  forward  to  entertain  any 
instrument  whereby  she  might  grow  and  increase  in 
the  service  of  God  and  the  charities  of  human  people." 
Nothing  seems  to  me  more  likely  than  that,  when 
Taylor's  wife  and  children  were  forced  to  leave 
Uppingham,  Lady  Northampton  found  a  temporary 
asylum  for  them,  half-way  to  Oxford,  at  Overstone. 
Meanwhile  it  is  to  be  observed  that  as  Lord  North- 
ampton died  early  in  1643,  and  as  he  had  been  since 
the  breaking  out  of  the  war  closely  engaged  in  military 
business,  the  long  conversations  in  which  "  that  excel- 
lent person"  discussed  theological  literature  with 


it.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  29 

Jeremy  Taylor  were  probably  held  before  the  summer 
of  1642.1 

The  favour  which  Christopher  Hatton  enjoyed  with 
the  king  was  now  steadily  on  the  increase.  Various 
distinctions  were  conferred  upon  him ;  he  was  raised 
to  the  peerage  as  Lord  Hatton  of  Kirby  in  the  summer 
of  1643,  and  before  the  winter  of  that  year  wa)  out, 
was  appointed  Comptroller  of  the  King's  Household, 
a  post  which  he  held  as  long  as  Charles  had  a  house- 
hold to  be  comptrolled.  Hatton's  friendship  for  Taylor 
became  still  more  practically  intimate  after  this  ap- 
pointment, and,  as  chaplain-in-ordinary  and  general 
manager  of  household  business,  the  two  were  brought 
into  constant  intercourse.  A  curious  incident  unites 
the  names  of  these  companions  in  a  manner  difficult 
to  unravel.  In  1644  a  volume  was  published  at  Oxford, 
called  The  Psalter  of  David,  "by  the  Right  Honourable 
Christopher  Hatton."  A  manuscript  note  by  Anthony 
a  Wood,  in  a  copy  of  the  first  edition,  however,  informs 
us  that  it  was  really  composed  by  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
after  the  death  of  both,  on  the  title-page  of  the  eighth 
edition,  the  name  of  Taylor  was  quietly  substituted 
for  that  of  Hatton  by  the  publisher  of  1672.  Roger 
North  says  that  Lord  Hatton  "had  bright  parts,  and 

1  The  parochial  registers  of  Overstone,  unfortunately,  begin 
with  the  year  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  death,  1667.  The  Earl  of 
Winchilsea  and  Nottingham  very  kindly  allowed  me  to  search 
the  vast  accretions  of  his  family  papers  for  undescribed  letters 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  which  were  believed  to  exist  there.  These, 
unhappily,  could  not  be  discovered,  but  during  the  investiga- 
tion we  came  by  accident  upon  a  deed  of  Charles  i.,  with  his 
great  seal,  granting  the  rectory  of  Overstone  to  Taylor.  It  is 
on  this  document,  which  remained  in  Lord  Hatton's  possession, 
that  the  statements  in  the  text  are  founded. 


30  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

professed  also  to  be  religious."  Eden,  although  he 
rejected  the  Psalter  from  Taylor's  works,  was  inclined 
to  think  that  he  had  a  hand  in  preparing  it  for  the 
press.  It  is  a  little  edition  of  the  Psalms,  interspersed 
with  collects,  and  intended  for  "the  closets  of  divers 
devout  persons."  Nothing  can  be  more  natural  than 
that  Hatton  should  propose  and  design  such  a  work, 
and  should  employ  Taylor  to  carry  it  out  under  his 
supervision. 

For  the  next  two  years,  to  follow  the  fortunes  of 
Jeremy  Taylor  is  to  trace  the  adventures  of  the  royal 
household  to  which  he  was  attached.  Fuller  had  fled 
to  Oxford,  but  neither  he  nor  Chillingworth  was  in 
complete  sympathy  with  the  king  or  with  his  courtiers, 
and  both  soon  passed  elsewhere,  Chillingworth  to  die 
of  a  wound  received  early  in  1644  at  the  siege  of 
Arundel.  With  Fuller,  his  one  great  literary  rival, 
it  does  not  seem  that  Taylor  had  any  relations ;  they 
appear  to  have  lived  side  by  side  each  unconscious  of 
the  other.  On  the  6th  of  May  1644  Mercurius  Aulicus 
reports  that  the  members  have  placed  one  Isaac  Massey 
to  preach  at  Uppingham,  in  the  place  of  the  true 
pastor,  Doctor  Jeremy  Taylor,  whose  house  had  been 
"plundered,  his  estate  seized,  and  his  family  driven 
out  of  doors."  But  the  latter  statement  probably 
refers  to  events  of  the  previous  year.  On  the  3rd  of 
June  1644,  the  exodus  from  Oxford  began,  and  there 
were  weary  months  of  marching  and  counter-marching 
before,  on  the  23rd  of  November,  the  king  re-entered 
that  city  in  triumph.  That  temporary  exultation  soon 
sank  in  the  depression  of  the  poverty  and  distress  at 
Oxford,  where  early  in  1645  a  wretchedness  approach- 
ing to  famine  dismayed  the  royalist  garrison.  On 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  31 

January  10th,  Taylor's  earliest  and  most  efficient  friend, 
Laud,  was  executed.  On  the  7th  of  May  the  king 
marched  out  with  his  army  towards  the  north,  leaving 
Oxford  to  be  starved  up  to  the  verge  of  submission. 
To  and  fro,  through  the  Midland  counties,  Charles 
conducted  his  followers  in  vague  and  ineffectual  man- 
O3uvres.  By  what  means  Jeremy  Taylor  became 
separated  from  the  king's  household  it  is  impossible 
to  determine ;  but  he  was  with  Colonel  Charles  Gerard 
when  that  general  was  defeated  in  trying  to  relieve 
Cardigan  Castle  on  the  4th  of  February  1645,  and 
he  was  among  the  prisoners  captured  by  the  Parlia- 
mentarians. 

The  campaign  in  South  Wales  raged  up  and  down 
the  valley  of  the  Teify,  and  particularly  round  Cardigan 
Castle,  which  was  the  strategic  base  of  that  position. 
It  was  the  brilliant  Parliamentary  general,  Rowland 
Laugharne,  who  captured  Cardigan  at  Christmas  time 
1644,  although  held  by  a  strong  garrison,  who  defended 
it  "until  a  semi-culverine  of  brass,  belonging  to  the 
Leopard,  was  mounted  and  played  three  days  upon 
them,  forcing  a  breach  which  was  gallantly  entered." 
On  the  22nd  of  January  1645,  Gerard,  descending  the 
Teify  to  check  the  invaders,  was  repulsed,  and  again, 
as  we  have  seen,  on  the  4th  of  February,  when  Taylor 
must  have  been  captured.  Laugharne  pushed  on, 
impeded  by  his  prisoners  and  his  booty,  to  the  investi- 
ture of  Newcastle  Emlyn,  on  the  southern  bank  of  the 
Teify,  a  strong  fortress  which  was  the  key  to  Carmar- 
thenshire. Had  the  Parliamentarians  stormed  this 
place,  they  must  have  overrun  the  county.  But  on 
the  23rd  of  April  the  garrison  of  Newcastle  Emlyn, 
taking  advantage  of  their  magnificent  base,  attacked 


32  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  army  of  Laugharne,  and  completely  routed  it. 
Among  the  prisoners  released  by  this  turn  in  the 
fortunes  of  war,  Taylor  may  possibly  have  been  in- 
cluded. But  it  is  more  likely  that  he  had  been  left 
behind  in  Cardigan  Castle,  and  was  now  exchanged. 
It  is  to  be  noted,  perhaps,  that  he  must  originally 
have  started  from  Newcastle  Emlyn  with  Gerard  when 
he  marched  to  attack  Laugharne,  and  that  this  fortress 
(the  New  Castle  of  Emlyn)  was  the  property  and  one 
of  the  residences  of  that  Earl  of  Carbery  (whose 
courtesy  title  was  Lord  Emlyn)  who  was  shortly  to 
be,  if  he  was  not  already,  Taylor's  next  patron.  We 
are  certain,  however,  only  of  the  fact  that  he  had  now 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 

Of  the  events  which  followed  this  catastrophe  Taylor 
gives  the  following  account,  in  language  that  is  tanta- 
lisingly  guarded : — 

"  In  this  great  storm  which  hath  dashed  the  vessel  of  the 
Church  all  in  pieces,  I  have  been  cast  upon  the  coast  of  Wales, 
and  in  a  little  boat  thought  to  have  enjoyed  that  rest  and 
quietness  which  in  England  in  a  greater  I  could  not  hope  for. 
Here  I  cast  anchor,  and  thinking  to  ride  safely,  the  storm 
followed  me  with  so  impetuous  violence,  that  it  broke  a  cable, 
and  I  lost  my  anchor.  And  here  again  I  was  exposed  to  the 
mercy  of  the  sea,  and  the  gentleness  of  an  element  that  could 
neither  distinguish  things  nor  persons.  And  but  that  He 
who  stilleth  the  raging  of  the  sea,  and  the  noise  of  His  waves, 
and  the  madness  of  His  people,  had  provided  a  plank  for  me, 
I  had  been  lost  to  all  the  opportunities  of  content  or  study. 
But  I  know  not  whether  I  have  been  more  preserved  by  the 
courtesies  of  my  friends,  or  the  gentleness  and  mercies  of  a 
noble  enemy." 

From  the  opening  words  of  this  passage  we  must 
infer  that  when  Taylor  left  the  king,  and  retreated  to 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  33 

South  Wales,  it  was  with  the  idea  of  settling  to  clerical 
work,  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  of  marching  as  a 
soldier,  since  the  "little  boat"  is  manifestly  contrasted 
with  the  "greater  "  of  Oxford,  Then,  after  the  capture 
at  Cardigan,  from  which  it  is  said  that  he  was  quickly 
released,  we  are  here  instructed  that  after  being  in 
imminent  danger  from  the  Puritan  army  which  was 
sweeping  South  Wales,  Jeremy  Taylor  was  saved  by 
the  joint  action  of  his  friends  and  of  "a  noble  enemy." 
The  identity  of  the  latter  is  unknown,  and  has  greatly 
puzzled  Taylor's  annotators.  Heber  ingeniously  argued 
that  it  must  be  Colonel  Laugharne,  his  captor  and  the 
governor  of  Pembroke  Castle,  but  of  this  there  is  no 
evidence  whatever.  Nor  do  I  believe  that,  in  the 
parlance  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Laugharne  or  any 
other  of  the  men  who  came  to  the  front  in  Pembrokeshire 
as  the  leaders  of  the  popular  cause,  would  be  styled  a 
"  noble  "  enemy.  This  points  to  one  who  was  techni- 
cally a  nobleman,  and  unless  we  may  conjecture  that 
Essex  was  corresponded  with,  I  confess  that  I  am  quite 
at  a  loss  to  identify  Taylor's  possible  deliverer.  It 
would  greatly  simplify  our  inquiry  if  we  could  per- 
suade ourselves  that  the  "  noble  enemy  "  was  Richard 
Vaughan,  second  Earl  of  Carbery,  with  whom  Jeremy 
Taylor  was  now  about  to  take  up  his  abode  at  Golden 
Grove. 

The  difficulty  is  that  Lord  Carbery  was,  at  least 
nominally,  a  royalist,  and  therefore  no  "enemy." 
But  the  passage  which  has  just  been  quoted  appeared 
in  1647,  in  the  preface  to  The  Liberty  of  Prophesying, 
a  book  primarily  intended  to  be  read  by  the  king. 
Taylor's  language  is  veiled  in  an  allusive  obscurity 
which  is  almost  unintelligible  unless  we  suppose  that  to 

C 


34  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

have  been  lucid  would  have  been  to  be  guilty  of  indis- 
cretion. Now,  it  is  certain  that  Taylor's  position  at 
Golden  Grove  was  rendered  doubly  delicate,  and  yet, 
with  care,  doubly  secure,  by  the  ambiguous  political 
attitude  of  Lord  Carbery.  That  nobleman  belonged 
to  a  type  of  moderates,  few  in  number  in  that  hour 
and  place,  who  sympathised  with  liberty  of  conscience, 
while  deploring  the  excesses  of  the  fanatics,  and  who 
wished  to  support  the  king,  while  detesting  his 
obstinacy  and  ignorance.  He  was,  in  fact,  exactly 
what,  a  little  later  and  with  great  injustice,  grew 
to  be  called  a  "trimmer,"  and  all  we  know  of  his 
character  fits  in  with  Halifax's  inimitable  description 
of  the  man  who  could  "  distinguish  and  desire  a  mean 
between  the  sauciness  of  some  of  the  Scotch  apostles, 
and  the  undecent  courtship  of  some  of  the  silken 
divines,  who  do  practise  to  bow  at  the  altar  only  to 
learn  to  make  the  better  legs  at  court." 

Lord  Carbery,  who  was  for  many  years  to  be  the 
protector  and  companion  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  was  at 
this  time  a  man  of  between  forty  and  fifty  years  of 
age.  His  position  as  one  of  the  wealthiest  landlords 
in  South  Wales  gave  him  great  local  importance,  and 
when  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  his  loyalty  to  the 
king  was  unquestioned.  He  organised  the  formation 
of  militia  in  his  own  counties  of  Carmarthen  and 
Cardigan,  and  after  the  first  battles  he  was  appointed 
lieutenant-governor  of  the  army  in  these  shires,  and 
in  that  of  Pembroke.  But  he  showed  little  zeal,  and 
less  as  time  went  on.  Doubtless  he  grew  increasingly 
disturbed  by  doubts  of  the  entire  justice  of  the  Royalist 
cause.  Meanwhile,  there  were  opposed  to  him  the 
energy  and  rapidity  of  Rowland  Laugharne;  and 


li.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  35 

Lord  Carbery  became  more  and  more  languid  as  a 
general.  In  March  1644  his  troops  were  driven  out 
of  Pembrokeshire,  and  he  took  the  opportunity  to 
resign  his  appointment  in  favour  of  Gerard.  He 
withdrew  to  his  house  of  Golden  Grove,  and  rumours 
were  soon  current  of  his  cultivating  the  company  of 
his  opponents  too  tamely,  until  it  was  more  than  hinted 
that  his  allegiance  was  dubious.  He  was  certainly 
the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Essex ;  he  was  no 
less  certainly  treated  with  singular  mildness  by  the 
victorious  Parliamentarians.  Later  on  in  the  story 
we  shall  find  him  acquiescing  contentedly  in  the  action 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  loyalists  broadly 
impeached  both  his  integrity  and  his  courage.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  that  Lord  Carbery  was  a  coward  ; 
he  was  a  "  trimmer,"  in  the  original  sense.  He  was 
a  tolerant  and  thoughtful  man,  whose  conscience 
hung  in  the  balance  between  two  causes,  and  gradually 
leaned  over  on  the  liberal  side.  But  by  1647,  when 
Jeremy  Taylor  wrote  his  dedication,  Carbery  might 
well  be  regarded  by  Charles  I.  as  a  "  noble  enemy." 

The  storm  of  1645,  however,  cast  Taylor,  deprived 
of  books,  effects,  and  means,  into  "a  private  corner 
of  the  world,"  as  Eust  tells  us,  where  "a  tender 
providence  shrouded  him  under  her  wings,  and  the 
prophet  was  fed  in  the  wilderness."  In  a  romantic 
valley  of  Carmarthenshire,  an  Oxford  friend  of 
Taylor's,  William  Wyatt,  had  recently  joined  the 
distinguished  grammarian,  Dr.  William  Nicholson,  to 
help  him  in  starting  a  private  school.  Taylor  may 
well  have  known  Nicholson  also,  since  the  future 
Bishop  of  Gloucester  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  Oxford. 
Since  1626,  Nicholson  had  been  rector  of  Llandilo- 


36  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

vawr,  and  Wyatt  of  Llanfihangel-Aberbythych,  the 
church  of  which  was  contiguous,  on  the  west  side, 
with  the  park  of  Golden  Grove.  In  the  rectory,  we 
may  suppose,  the  storm-tossed  fugitive  was  originally 
received,  while  suggestions  were  being  made  for 
"supplying  him  with  bread  and  necessaries."  One 
of  the  earliest  initiations  would  naturally  be  to  take 
him  to  the  great  house,  where  the  general  patron, 
Lord  Carbery,  fell  under  Taylor's  customary  spell, 
welcomed  him  to  Golden  Grove,  and  presently  made 
him  his  chaplain. 

These  household  duties  did  not  prevent  him  from 
joining  Nicholson  and  Wyatt  in  their  school,  which 
was  held  at  a  house  called  Newton  Hall,  which 
Nicholson  rented.  This  "  private  academy "  was 
highly  successful,  until  the  Restoration  rendered  its 
revenue  needless  to  its  principal  founders.  Wood 
says  that  "several  youths  were  most  loyally  edu- 
cated there,  and  afterwards  sent  to  the  universities." 
Of  these,  young  Christopher  Hatton,  the  future  first 
Viscount  Hatton,  was  one,  and  another  was  the 
boy  who  afterwards  became  a  judge,  Sir  John 
Powell,  and  who  in  1650  was  matriculated  from 
Newton  Hall,  or  Collegium  Newtoniense,  as  the  fond 
pedantry  of  its  founders  preferred  to  call  it.  Other 
obscurer  pupils  have  recorded  their  appreciation  of 
their  masters,  who,  in  1647,  issued  a  Grammar, 
apparently  a  joint  production,  to  which  Jeremy 
Taylor  contributed  a  florid  dedication  in  English. 

A  third  means  of  support  remained  within  Taylor's 
reach,  his  pen.  But  on  his  first  arrival  at  Llanfihan- 
gel-Aberbythych he  was  sadly  hampered  by  the  want  of 
books.  He  had  been  accustomed,  in  his  Oxford  days, 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  37 

to  that  excessive  and  almost  incessant  reference  to 
authorities,  which  was  so  devastating  to  the  prose  of 
that  age,  and  particularly  to  its  theology.  In  his 
present  retirement  he  felt,  at  first,  helpless  away  from 
a  library ;  in  the  "voisinage"  of  Golden  Grove  there 
were  no  volumes  of  a  casuistical  species,  and  it  was 
long  before  he  took  courage  to  make  bricks  without 
patristic  straw.  He  waited  to  begin  to  write  in  Wales, 
he  tells  us,  until  he  felt  that  he  "needed  no  other 
books  or  aids  than  what  a  man  carries  with  him  on 
horseback."  Then  he  became,  for  the  first  time,  a  free 
writer  and  a  great  master  of  English.  But,  at  the 
beginning,  his  spirits  were  too  far  cast  down,  and  his 
hopes  too  shattered  to  enable  him  to  do  more  than 
his  ordinary  daily  business.  He  suffered,  after  the 
shock  of  his  disaster  and  his  peril,  from  a  severe 
reaction,  during  which  he  could  do  no  more  than 
brood  over  "the  public  dyscrasy" — as  he  loves  to 
call  it — and  all  the  calamities  of  his  Church  and 
country.  "I  had  seen  my  design  blasted  in  the  bud," 
he  says,  "and  I  despaired  in  the  Calends  of  doing 
what  I  purposed  in  the  Ides  before."  But  gradually 
this  melancholy  passed  away,  and  he  turned  to  literary 
labour. 

He  now  secured  the  valuable  co-operation  of  the 
eminent  royalist  publisher,  Richard  Royston,  who,  in 
1647,  bought  up  the  remainders  of  Taylor's  early  works, 
and  issued  them  with  his  own  imprint.  Eoyston,  who 
was  to  be  Taylor's  publisher  for  the  future,  was  a  man  of 
much  capacity  and  resource.  He  was  the  leader  of  his 
profession  all  through  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  when  he  died,  full  of  wealth  and  con- 
sideration, in  1686,  he  was  nearly  ninety  years  of  age. 


38  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Royston  was  "  bookseller  to  three  kings,"  and  in  his 
loyalist  enthusiasm  frequently  got  into  trouble  during 
the  Commonwealth.  He  was  accused,  and  with  perfect 
justice,  of  being  "a  constant  factor  for  all  scandalous 
books  "  against  the  decrees  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
His  relations  with  Jeremy  Taylor,  although  strained 
once  or  twice,  were  on  the  whole  creditable  and 
advantageous  to  both. 

In  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  we  will  confine  our- 
selves to  a  rapid  survey  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  publications 
during  the  first  four  years  of  his  residence  at  Golden 
Grove,  because  they  all  belong,  in  conception  if  not  in 
execution,  to  the  earlier  period  of  his  career.  Although 
he  was  stripped,  after  Cardigan,  of  all  his  papers,  so 
that  he  became  "  full  of  apprehension  that  I  should  live 
unprofitably,  and  die  obscurely,  and  be  forgotten,"  it  is 
evident  that  he  must  have  left  some  of  his  manuscripts 
at  All  Souls,  whence  they  were  afterwards  partly  sent 
to  him.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  at  least  one 
manuscript,  that  of  his  Reverence  due  to  the  Altar,  being 
mislaid,  remained  at  Oxford.  The  first  work  which 
Taylor  prepared  at  Golden  Grove  for  the  press  was 
that  which  is  now  generally  known  as  An  Apology  for 
Liturgy,  part  of  which  appeared  anonymously,  as  A  Dis- 
course concerning  Prayer,  towards  the  close  of  1646. 
Taylor  found  means  to  bring  this  surreptitious  issue 
under  the  notice  of  Charles  I.;  and  he  produced  the 
complete  work,  with  a  daring  dedication,  "to  his  most 
sacred  majesty,"  just  before  the  king's  execution; 
this  should  not  be  overlooked  as  a  proof  of  Taylor's, 
fidelity  and  courage. 

An  Apology  for  Liturgy  was  a  very  popular  work 
among  the  High  Church  party,  and  was  often  reprinted 


it.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  39 

in  the  course  of  Taylor's  life.  It  is  a  reply  to  the 
decisions  of  the  House  of  Commons  as  embodied  in  the 
ordinance  of  January  1645,  by  which  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  was  abolished,  and  a  Directory  of 
Worship  set  up  to  enforce  uniformity.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  Taylor  waited  for  this  enact- 
ment, which  was  but  the  official  promulgation  of  views 
which  had  been  loudly  expressed  for  three  years  past. 
The  beauty  and  fitness  for  its  purpose  of  the  English 
liturgy  in  its  entire  constitution,  the  "  ghostly  advan- 
tage "  of  employing  it,  the  quality  of  the  priest's  power 
in  absolution,  the  importance  of  praying  to  God  "with 
consideration,"  the  scandal  of  allowing  the  ecclesiastical 
regiment  to  become  a  democracy,  all  these  were  themes 
familiar  to  his  thoughts,  although  the  action  of  the 
Directory  compelled  him  to  publication. 

From  a  literary  point  of  view,  An  Apology  for  Liturgy 
shows  a  growing  freedom  in  style.  The  colloquial  turn 
of  some  of  the  sentences,  and  the  use  of  "  Well ! "  in 
argument  betray  the  orator  beneath  the  casuist.  The 
treatise  is  rather  rich  in  faint  autobiographical  touches. 
Taylor's  romantic  attachment  to  the  set  forms  of 
worship  takes  beautiful  shapes :  "  I  can  but  with  joy 
and  eucharist  consider  with  what  advantages  and 
blessings  the  pious  protestant  is  entertained,  and 
blessed,  and  armed  against  all  his  needs,  by  the  con- 
stant and  religious  usage  of  the  Common  Prayer 
Book."  We  listen  with  pleasure  while  he  dilates  on 
his  own  singular  relish  in  the  collects,  and  his  joy  in 
the  forms  of  confession  and  praise.  His  idea  of  prayer 
was  of  something  deliberate  and  stately;  he  did  not 
believe  in  impromptu  devotion,  or  worship  conducted 
without  art  or  deliberation.  He  faintly  and  grudgingly 


40  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

admits  the  use  of  private  extempore  prayer,  but 
evidently  disparages  it,  and  asks  why  the  Holy  Spirit 
should  fly  from  us  at  the  sight  of  an  ink-horn. 
Jeremy  Taylor  himself  wrote  down  all  his  prayers. 
In  An  Apology  for  Liturgy  we  find  him  still  intolerant, 
still  the  enemy  of  every  sort  of  innovation.  The 
change,  therefore,  to  his  next  public  appearance  is 
something  startling. 

On  the  28th  of  June  1647  was  published  a  work, 
the  importance  of  which  cast  all  Taylor's  previous 
productions  into  insignificance.  The  Liberty  of  Pro- 
phesying was  his  first  long  book,  and  it  was  his  first 
independent  book.  In  it,  for  the  first  time,  he  came 
forward  as  a  great  theological  innovator.  It  is  true,  as 
S.  R.  Gardiner  has  pointed  out,  that  "three-fourths  of  its 
argument  were  written  under  the  influence  of  Chilling- 
worth's  "  Religion  of  a  Protestant.  Doubtless  all  those 
walks  in  Oxford  gardens,  at  the  close  of  which  Chilling- 
worth  had  found  cause  gently  to  complain  of  Taylor's 
inattention,  had  produced  far  more  effect  on  the 
younger  divine  than  the  elder  supposed.  Never- 
theless, the  attitude  of  Taylor  in  1647  was  a  pro- 
foundly individual  one,  and  in  one  respect,  and  that 
the  most  important,  it  owed  nothing  to  a  predecessor. 
Chillingworth's  entire  interest  had  been  swallowed  up 
in  his  analysis  of  English  divergencies  from  Rome. 
In  the  general  "  dyscrasy  "  Taylor  gave  little  thought 
to  the  Papal  system ;  he  was  absorbed  in  the  troubles 
nearer  home.  He  has  still  to  be  fighting  along  the 
narrow  Anglican  ridge,  but  his  sword  is  turned  mainly 
now  towards  the  side  of  Geneva. 

The  sword,  however,  though  still  unsheathed,  takes 
a  far  less  prominent  place  than  the  palm-branch  in  The 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  41 

Liberty  of  Prophesying.  The  discourse  opens  with  a 
yearning  cry  for  amity.  The  Oxford  attitude,  the 
old  Laudian  arrogance,  have  given  way  to  a  softer 
tolerance.  Jeremy  Taylor  has  grown  gentle  and  meek 
in  his  adversity.  He  is  no  longer  "hasty  in  calling 
every  disliked  opinion  by  the  name  of  heresy."  There 
is,  we  must  perhaps  admit,  the  natural  difference 
which  comes  over  the  advocate  of  a  majority  when  he 
has  to  appeal  for  a  minority.  The  natural  timidity 
of  Taylor,  the  too-easily  fluttered  spirits,  have  to  be 
taken  into  account.  As  Canon  Hensley  Henson  has 
put  it,  "  his  sense  of  the  inherent  wrongfulness  of 
forcing  conscience  was  quickened  by  the  discomforts 
of  his  lot."  But  these  do  not  explain  the  sudden 
burst  of  intellectual  and  moral  liberality  which  make 
The  Liberty  of  Prophesying  such  a  stimulating  volume. 
We  read  it  with  enthusiasm,  because  it  shows  a  real 
and  surprising  growth  in  virtue  and  wisdom. 

The  spirit  which  inspires  the  author  of  this  treatise 
is  the  hope  to  see  the  English  Church,  over  which  the 
flood  has  swept,  repair  its  scattered  ruins,  and  be 
redintegrated  in  a  new  Pentecost.  He  sees  that  this 
may  be  done  by  the  way  of  peace.  He  has  the  brilliant 
intuition  that  if  the  divided  tongues  of  the  Spirit  are 
of  the  same  fire,  their  different  operation  may  be 
left  to  lead  automatically  towards  a  more  splendid 
illumination  of  truth.  From  this  conception  of  unity 
in  difference,  casting  out  the  ugliness  of  discord,  The 
Liberty  of  Prophesying  starts,  and  the  author  develops, 
on  these  lines,  a  courageous,  and,  in  spite  of  what  had 
been  said  by  earlier  and  more  partial  opponents  of 
tyranny,  in  the  main  a  perfectly  novel  plea  for  the 
right  of  religious  liberty.  The  book  is  inspired  by 


42  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  warmest  and  the  most  delicate  Christian  charity, 
expounded  at  an  hour  and  in  a  country  where  passion 
had  made  charity  almost  appear  untenable.  It  had 
occurred  to  Taylor  in  his  solitude  that  the  general 
violence  of  religious  anger  in  England  was  as  absurd 
as  it  was  hateful ;  that  it  must  be  "  inconsistent  with 
God's  goodness  to  condemn  those  who  err  when  the 
error  hath  nothing  of  the  will  in  it."  Every  man 
must  be  left  free  to  find  out,  according  to  his  best 
lights,  what  is  truth  to  him.  It  is  the  sin  against  the 
heavenly  vision  which  is  the  worst  offence,  and  after 
all  "  no  man's  spirit  is  known  to  any  but  to  God  and 
himself."  On  the  other  hand,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
Taylor  had  the  signal  independence  to  oppose  the 
theory  which  was  almost  universal  in  the  Puritan 
society  of  his  day,  and  which  was  eminently  defended 
by  Milton,  that  sectarianism  itself  was  praiseworthy. 

The  importance  of  this  wonderful  book,  from  the 
theological  and  philosophical  side,  is  so  great  that 
many  writers  have  not  scrupled  to  give  it  the  highest 
place  among  the  works  of  its  author.  Without  under- 
valuing it  in  the  least,  however,  it  must  be  pointed  out 
that  on  purely  literary  grounds  The  Liberty  of  Pro- 
phesying can  lay  no  claim  to  such  pre-eminence.  It  is 
written  in  a  style  very  clear,  simple,  and  unadorned, 
with  a  sweetness  of  temper  entirely  characteristic  of 
its  writer,  and  with  none  or  few  of  those  impediments, 
those  pedantic  snags  in  the  current,  which  had  hitherto 
impeded  the  course  of  Taylor's  language.  He  bitterly 
deplores  his  separation  from  his  books ;  but  we  may 
rejoice  at  his  release  from  their  bondage.  He  still  has 
his  beloved  Prudentius,  and  his  not  less  valued  Horace, 
and  he  is  more  free  to  use  them,  now  that  his  shelves 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  43 

are  no  longer  crowded  with  folio  Fathers.  He  does 
not  regret  his  past  study  of  the  schoolmen,  but  has 
abandoned  them  for  the  present ;  he  recognises  their 
weak  logic  and  their  contradictions  and  their  narrow- 
ness ;  he  laughs  out  loud  at  the  folly  of  Pope  Adrian  VI. 
in  believing  that  "  all  poetry  was  heretical."  But  with 
all  the  amenity  and  all  the  eloquence  of  The  Liberty  of 
Prophesying,  it  does  not  exhibit  to  us  the  glory  of 
Taylor.  It  is  bare  and  a  little  dry  in  statement; 
there  is  a  remarkable  absence  of  that  pomp  of  imagery 
which  is  characteristic  of  his  finest  writing.  Its 
lucidity  is  slightly  humdrum ;  it  presents  few  passages 
which  could  be  separated  from  their  context,  and 
exhibited  as  specimens  of  English.  But  that  his  style, 
though  still  unadorned,  had  become  admirably  pure 
and  direct,  a  fragment  of  narrative,  not  untouched 
with  humour,  may  exemplify  : — 

"It  was  an  argument  of  some  wit,  but  of  singularity  of 
understanding,  that  happened  in  the  great  contestation 
between  the  missals  of  S.  Ambrose  and  S.  Gregory.  The 
lot  was  thrown,  and  God  made  to  be  judge,  so  as  He  was 
tempted  to  a  miracle  to  answer  a  question  which  themselves 
might  have  ended  without  much  trouble.  The  two  missals 
were  laid  upon  the  altar,  and  the  church  door  shut  and  sealed. 
By  the  morrow  matins  they  found  S.  Gregory's  missal  torn  in 
pieces  and  thrown  about  the  church,  but  S.  Ambrose's  opened 
and  laid  upon  the  altar  in  a  posture  of  being  read.  If  I  had 
been  to  judge  of  the  meaning  of  this  miracle,  I  should  have 
made  no  scruple  to  have  said  it  had  been  the  will  of  God  that 
the  missal  of  S.  Ambrose,  which  had  been  anciently  used  and 
publicly  tried  and  approved  of,  should  still  be  read  in  the 
Church.  And  that  of  Gregory  let  alone,  it  being  torn  by  an 
angelical  hand  as  an  argument  of  its  imperfection,  or  of  the 
inconvenience  of  innovation.  But  yet  they  judged  it  other- 
wise. For,  by  the  tearing  and  scattering  about,  they  thought 


44  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

it  -was  meant  it  should  be  used  over  all  the  world,  and  that  of 
S.  Ambrose  read  only  in  the  church  of  Milan.  I  am  more 
satisfied  that  the  former  was  the  true  meaning  than  I  am  of 
the  truth  of  the  story  ;  but  we  must  suppose  that." 

The  attitude  of  Taylor  must  not  be  confounded  with 
that  which  had  been  adopted  as  early  as  1641  by 
Williams,  and  after  the  battle  of  Edgehill  by  the 
party  of  Holies.  Fuller  had  reminded  the  House  of 
Commons,  unwilling  listeners  to  his  plea,  that  "  Blessed 
are  the  peace-makers,"  and  others  less  eloquent  than 
he  had  desired  to  discover  for  the  Church  of  England 
a  middle  path  between  Laud  and  the  Presbyterians. 
There  had  been  a  desire  expressed,  here  and  there,  in 
intervals  of  weariness  after  the  clash  of  arms,  for  rest 
in  a  reasonable  common  creed.  The  Puritans  were  to 
concede  some  points  on  their  side,  the  Episcopalians 
to  push  their  demands  less  stringently ;  extremists 
were  to  avoid  running  a-tilt  against  the  scruples  of 
their  neighbours.  Fuller,  for  instance,  while  he  was 
hopeful  that  the  king  would  show  "  a  fair  condescen- 
sion in  matters  of  church  reformation,"  denied  "any 
transcendent  extraordinary  miraculous  light"  to  the 
lay  preachers  of  the  Separatists.  Williams  was  more 
outspoken  in  his  famous  pamphlet,  The  Bloody  Tenet 
of  Persecution  (1644),  in  which  he  deprecated  all  recourse 
to  the  civil  arm,  and  recommended  for  the  correc- 
tion of  spiritual  offences  a  spiritual  censure.  As 
Gardiner  has  excellently  said,  all  these  preluders  of 
the  principle  of  toleration  longed  for  peace  through 
mutual  concession.  As  much  may  be  said  for  the 
anonymous  author  of  that  very  remarkable  tract, 
Liberty  of  Conscience,  of  which  the  same  historian 
has  given  so  valuable  an  account;  although  that 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  45 

also  marks  a  stage  along  the  road  of  humanity  and 
charity. 

In  spite  of  the  liberality  shown,  on  certain  points, 
by  Cromwell,  in  spite  of  Milton's  voice  lifted  so  nobly 
in  Comus  and  Areopayitica,  in  spite,  too,  of  the  glimmer- 
ings exhibited  by  that  odd  group  of  dissenters  who 
were  called  the  Independents,  it  cannot  be  said  that 
liberty  of  conscience,  in  the  broad  and  modern  sense, 
was  brought  before  the  minds  of  Englishmen  until 
Jeremy  Taylor  published  his  Liberty  of  Prophesying. 
It  is  an  extraordinary  proof  of  the  vigour  of  his  mind, 
that  he,  of  all  men  living,  trained  at  Cambridge  and 
Oxford  in  the  very  mysteries  of  Thorough,  the  proUgt 
of  Laud,  the  companion  of  Juxon  and  Sheldon,  should, 
without  passing  through  any  violent  crisis,  by  the 
sheer  evolution  of  his  piety  and  tenderness,  have 
broken  through  the  thickest  crust  of  prejudice.  This 
danger  of  being  misunderstood  or  too  well  under- 
stood was  extreme ;  and  if  his  situation  had  not  been 
eminently  propitious,  it  is  probable  that  he  could  not 
have  dared  to  affront  the  fanaticism  of  the  age  with 
paragraphs  so  out-spoken  as  the  following  : — 

"  Well,  thus  far  are  we  come  !  Although  we  are  secured 
in  fundamental  points  from  involuntary  error  by  the  plain 
express,  and  dogmatical  places  of  Scripture,  yet  in  other  things 
we  are  not,  and  may  be  invincibly  mistaken,  because  of  the 
obscurity  and  difficulty  in  the  controverted  parts  of  Scrip- 
ture. .  .  .  Councils  are  contradictory  to  each  other,  and  there- 
fore certainly  are  equally  deceived,  many  of  them.  Then  the 
Popes  of  Home  are  very  likely  to  mislead  us,  but  cannot  ascertain 
us  of  truth  in  matter  of  question.  And  in  this  world  we  believe 
in  part,  and  prophesy  in  part,  and  this  imperfection  shall 
never  be  done  away  till  we  be  transplanted  to  a  more  glorious 
state.  Either,  then,  we  must  throw  our  chances  and  get  truth 


46  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

by  accident  or  predestination,  or  else  we  must  lie  safe  in  a 
mutual  toleration  and  private  liberty  of  persuasion,  unless 
some  other  anchor  can  be  thought  upon  where  we  may  fasten 
our  floating  vessels  and  ride  safely." 

Here  we  have  the  note  which  was  so  absolutely 
novel  in  Taylor.  Those  who  preceded  him  by  a  year 
or  two,  in  their  meditations  on  a  possible  religious  peace, 
had  conceived  a  plan  of  mutual  concession,  of  agree- 
ment upon  common  essentials.  But  it  was  Taylor  who 
first  conceived  of  a  toleration  not  founded  upon  agree- 
ment or  concession,  but  upon  a  broad  basis  of  practical 
piety,  of  loyal  confidence  in  that  church  which,  as  he 
says  in  one  of  his  luminous  phrases,  "  is  not  a  chimera, 
or  a  shadow,  but  a  company  of  men  believing  in  Jesus 
Christ,"  and  therefore  able  to  trust  the  bona  fides  of 
others  who  approach  the  same  truth  from  a  different 
standpoint.  He  called  the  sour  fanatics  of  his  time — 
and  in  1644  not  to  be  a  fanatic  of  some  sort  was  almost 
to  be  a  changeling  or  pariah — back  to  the  humane  and 
merciful  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ,  "  whose  lessons  were 
softer  than  nard  or  the  juice  of  the  Candian  olive." 
In  an  age  altogether  given  up  to  proscription  and  per- 
secution, Jeremy  Taylor  lifted  his  clear  voice  in  proof 
of  "the  unreasonableness  of  prescribing  to  other 
men's  faith,  and  the  iniquity  of  persecuting  differing 
opinions." 

It  is  not  too  much  to  claim  for  Taylor,  in  the 
religious  and  intellectual  order,  something  of  the 
gratitude  which  we  all  pay,  or  should  by  common 
justice  pay,  to  Sir  James  Simpson  in  the  physical  order. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  estimate  the  alleviation  which 
Taylor's  tolerant  theory,  in  its  successive  extensions, 
has  brought  to  the  multitudes  of  men.  Such  horrors 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  47 

in  the  cruel  chastisement  of  impiety  as  followed  the 
battle  of  Naseby  were  to  be  impossible  again  among 
civilised  Englishmen  as  long  as  the  world  should  last. 
It  was  gradually  to  be  understood  that  sin  is  not  to 
be  punished  by  torture,  and  that  the  liberal  opinion 
that  "all  papists,  and  anabaptists,  and  sacramentaries, 
are  fools  and  wicked  persons  "  was  no  longer  to  be  an 
excuse  for  ferocious  reprisals.  Those,  and  all  errors 
which  are  of  the  head  and  not  the  heart,  were  to  be 
treated  for  the  future  with  argument  and  a  meek 
humility, — the  blessed  anaesthetics  which  this  great 
innovator  introduced  into  the  practice  of  religious 
surgery.  What  the  world  has  gained  in  loss  of  pain  is 
incalculable.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  man  to-day  in 
England,  who  worships,  or  who  worships  not,  as  his 
conscience  bids  him,  who  does  not  owe  a  fraction  of 
his  peace  to  Jeremy  Taylor. 

Even  in  the  shades  of  Golden  Grove,  and  close  to 
the  rural  "  Church  of  the  Angels,"  such  a  novel  doctrine 
could  not  be  promulgated  without  danger.  Of  course 
Taylor  was  careful  to  guard  himself  from  misconcep- 
tion ;  equally,  of  course,  he  was  instantly  misconceived. 
He  was  careful  to  limit  his  plea  for  toleration  to  those 
who  unite  in  the  Christian  Creed,  but  this  was  of  slight 
importance  in  that  day,  when,  in  the  civilised  parts  of 
Europe,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  discover  persons 
not  Jews  or  atheists  not  nominally  covered  by  this 
general  confession.  He  does  not  say,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  discover,  a  single  word  which  would 
exclude  from  toleration  those  outside  the  Christian 
pale;  he  merely  does  not  consider  them.  He  seems 
to  admit  that  if  there  come  into  being  religious  systems 
which  teach  rebellion  or  immorality,  these  may  be  sub- 


48  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

dued  by  force  of  arms.  This  was,  perhaps,  illogical, 
but  some  such  admission  was  inevitable  in  the  face  of 
the  war  at  that  moment  raging  in  these  islands,  a  war 
which  Taylor's  loyalty  to  the  king  would  not  permit 
him  to  stigmatise  directly.  In  every  legitimate  mode, 
with  every  phrase  of  moderation,  he  sought  to  con- 
ciliate those  whom  his  theory  of  toleration  might  be 
expected  to  wound  and  startle. 

Of  these,  the  first  was  the  king  himself.  When 
The  Liberty  of  Prophesying  was  published,  Charles  I.  had 
recently  been  seized,  after  that  vivid  scene  in  the 
garden  at  Holmby,  and  had  been  carried  about  the 
country,  an  embarrassing  hostage,  by  Joyce  and  his 
troops.  This  had  been  the  opening  of  the  fifth  act  of 
his  tragedy,  and  now  Charles  was  in  more  need  than 
any  of  his  subjects  of  the  nard  and  balsam  of  charity. 
By  the  time  Taylor's  book  could  reach  him,  he  was 
ensconced  at  Caversham  under  Lord  Craven's  care,  and 
there  he  read,  no  doubt  with  fervent  interest,  the  new 
book  of  his  old  chaplain.  Intolerant  as  were  his 
enemies,  however,  they  met  with  a  narrowness  no  less 
stubborn  in  the  king.  Even  in  his  hour  of  humilia- 
tion— "  causeless  they  like  a  bird  have  chased  me  " — 
Charles  I.  could  not  accept  the  principle  of  a  free  con- 
science. He  expressed  his  displeasure  to  his  chaplains, 
and  he  instructed  one  of  them,  Dr.  Henry  Hammond, 
who  was  an  old  personal  friend  of  Taylor,  and  had 
succeeded  him  in  the  royal  household,  to  frame 
a  reply. 

The  gentle  and  dignified  Hammond  was  one  of  the 
most  uplifted  spirits  who  were  gathered  about  Charles  I. 
in  his  decline ;  he  had  been  made  his  private  chaplain 
in  Oxford  in  1644,  and  he  kept  near  him  in  spite  of  all 


n.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  49 

machinations  of  the  enemy,  who  specially  dreaded  his 
influence,  until  Christmas  of  this  year,  1647,  when  the 
king  was  deprived  of  all  his  servants.  Hammond  was 
famous  for  his  lavish  benevolence.  Although  a  great 
deal  of  money  passed  into  his  hands,  he  was  always 
poor,  for  he  was  always  giving.  He  had  much  in 
common  with  Taylor ;  like  him,  Hammond  had  written 
in  defence  of  Episcopacy  and  of  the  liturgy ;  and  later 
on  in  this  very  year  he  published  The  Christian's  Obliga- 
tion to  Peace  and  Charity.  In  this,  however,  his  vieAvs 
are  conventional,  and  show  no  grasp  of  Jeremy  Taylor's 
position.  It  was  in  his  Letter  of  Resolution  that  Ham- 
mond embodied  what  seem  to  have  been  the  king's 
main  objections  to  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  in  a  discussion 
of  "six  Quares."  He  traverses  Taylor's  already  sur- 
prising views  about  the  baptism  of  children  and  rebukes 
his  mildness  to  Anabaptists.  But  there  is  no  venom  in 
Hammond.  He  praises  the  "diligence"  of  the  very 
arguments  he  refutes,  and  is  everywhere  inspired  by 
friendliness  and  courtesy. 

There  were  many  attacks  of  a  severer  kind  made 
against  Taylor's  volume.  According  to  Heber,  who 
undertook  an  examination  of  these  pamphlets,  most  of 
which  are  obscure  and  insignificant,  the  most  serious 
was  that  made  by  Samuel  Rutherford  of  St.  Andrews,  in 
his  Free  Disputation  against  pretended  Liberty  of  Conscience. 
Nor  would  this  savage  libel  deserve  the  briefest  mention 
here,  were  it  not  that  its  sordid  existence  curiously  links 
with  the  name  of  Jeremy  Taylor  those  of  Milton  and 
of  S.  T.  Coleridge.  It  is  supposed  that  Milton,  who 
already  admired  Taylor's  genius,  and  had  read  The 
Liberty  of  Prophesying  with  approval,  was  so  much  in- 
censed at  Eutherford's  odious  defence  of  persecution 

D 


50  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

and  his  attack  on  the  gentle  charity  of  Taylor,  that,  in 
his  sonnet  on  the  "New  Forces,"  he  expressed  his 
horror  that  a  "Scotch  what  d'ye  call"  should  venture 
to  speak  in  such  terms  of  opprobrium  as  Rutherford 
used  for  Taylor ;  and  that 

"  Men  whose  life,  learning,  faith  and  pure  intent 
Would  have  been  held  in  high  esteem  with  Paul, 
Must  now  be  nam'd  and  printed  heretics." 

This  conjunction  of  Milton  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  its 
turn,  called  forth  a  century  and  a  half  later,  from  the 
youthful  S.  T.  Coleridge,  an  encomiastic  parallel  of  the 
genius  of  these  two  men,  which  is  one  of  the  most 
splendid  tributes  to  Taylor  ever  written. 

A  little  later  in  the  summer  of  1647,  we  have  a 
glimpse  of  Charles  I.  at  Caversham,  reported  by  Sir 
Philip  Warwick,  who  was  permitted  a  very  brief  inter- 
view with  him  : — 

"  I  could  perceive  "  (writes  Warwick)  "  he  was  very  appre- 
hensive in  what  hands  he  was,  but  was  not  to  let  it  be  dis- 
cerned. Nor  had  he  given  his  countenance  unto  Dr.  Taylor's 
Liberty  of  Prophesying,  which  some  believed  he  had  ;  but  that 
really  and  truly  it  was  refreshment  to  his  spirit  to  be  used 
with  some  civility,  and  to  serve  God  as  he  was  wont,  and  to 
see  some  old  faces  about  him." 

The  wording  of  this  phrase  seems  to  convey  that 
Charles  had  been  reproached  by  his  Puritan  jailors 
with  his  supposed  approval  of  his  former  chaplain's 
revolutionary  sentiments,  with  regard  to  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  that  he  was  anxious  to  remove  this 
impression.  Probably  very  few  persons,  in  either 
camp,  were  content  at  first  to  accept  Taylor's  position, 
but  he  had  sown  good  seed.  Meanwhile,  in  August 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  51 

Charles  was  brought  up  to  Putney,  whence  in  November 
he  fled  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  still  ready  in  his  amazing 
blindness  to  be  Pater  Patrice  on  his  own  terms.  But  he 
was  approaching  the  end  of  his  career,  and  from 
Christmas  1647,  he  was  a  helpless  prisoner  in  Caris- 
brooke  Castle. 

The  year  1648  was  one  of  extreme  disturbance  in 
South  Wales,  and  must  have  included  the  most  anxious 
months  of  Taylor's  residence  there.  Laugharne,  his 
old  enemy,  veered  round  to  the  king's  side,  and  an 
officer  of  his,  Poyer,  taking  the  initiative,  drove  the 
Parliamentarians  out  of  Pembrokeshire  in  March. 
South  Wales  suddenly  declared  for  the  king.  Horton 
was  sent  down  to  meet  the  mutineers,  and  in  April 
Poyer  marched  his  army  across  Carmarthenshire  to 
check  him,  passing  close  to  Golden  Grove.  By  the 
end  of  the  month,  the  whole  of  the  neighbourhood  was 
in  revolt,  and  as  Horton  advanced  the  Welsh  fled  to 
their  hills.  The  business  was  so  serious  that  Cromwell 
himself  was  sent  down  from  London,  but  before  he 
reached  South  Wales,  Horton  had  routed  Laugharne 
and  the  rebels  at  the  battle  of  St.  Fagans,  near  Llandaff, 
on  the  8th  of  May.  The  revolt  was  crushed,  but 
Cromwell's  advance  brought  terror  before  it.  He  cap- 
tured Chepstow  Castle  on  the  25th,  and  then  marched 
westwards  through  Glamorganshire  and  Carmarthen- 
shire. His  direct  road  brought  him  across  the  Towey 
at  the  town  of  Llandilovawr,  where  he  was  almost  in 
sight  of  Golden  Grove :  he  must  have  reached  this 
point  on  or  about  the  28th  of  May,  1648. 

Cromwell's  approach  threw  Lord  Carbery  into  a 
violent  apprehension.  The  general  was  presently  seen, 
with  a  troop  of  horse,  riding  across  country  towards 


52  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Golden  Grove.  The  pacific  owner  of  that  estate,  who 
had  already,  we  are  told,  been  "pardoned"  by  Laug- 
harne,  was  now  in  danger  of  seeing  all  his  property 
sequestered  by  Laugharne's  conqueror.  On  receiving 
news  that  Cromwell  was  coming,  the  earl  fled  across 
the  fields  to  one  of  his  remoter  farms,  leaving  his 
countess  to  receive  their  alarming  guest.  Lady  Car- 
bery,  no  doubt,  was  encouraged  to  believe  that  she 
could  plead  her  husband's  cause  with  success,  if  only, 
like  Lady  Verney  two  years  earlier,  she  could  "bring 
her  spirit  to  a  soliciting  temper,  and  tell  how  to  use 
the  juice  of  an  onion  to  soften  "  her  visitor's  heart.  It 
was  in  this  spirit  that  the  countess  received  Cromwell 
at  the  doors  of  Golden  Grove,  and  civilly  invited  him 
to  dismount.  The  resident  chaplain  would,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  be  at  her  side  to  support  her  ;  and  we 
cannot  doubt  that  Taylor's  exquisite  amenity  and 
courtesy  had  their  share  in  bringing  about  the  sur- 
prising result.  Cromwell,  who  came  to  sequester, 
stayed  to  dine;  and  in  the  afternoon  pursued  his 
march  to  the  beleaguerment  of  Tenby  and  Pembroke. 
The  antiquary,  who  tells  the  anecdote,  does  not  in  so 
many  words  inform  us  what  concessions  were  made  at 
the  dinner-table.  But  Lord  Carbery,  of  all  the  magnates 
of  South  Wales,  alone  escaped  sequestration.  With 
what  a  sigh  of  relief  the  crafty  lady  and  her  chaplain 
must  have  seen  the  horsemen  move  away  towards 
Carmarthen,  and  with  what  haste  a  messenger  must 
have  been  sent  to  fetch  the  earl  home  from  his  hiding- 
place  !  Lord  Carbery,  who  was  the  most  conspicuous 
trimmer  of  the  province,  gave  no  further  cause  of  sus- 
picion to  Parliament,  and  was  left  undisturbed.  It 
would  even  seem  that  Oliver  Cromwell  recalled  his 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  oS 

visit  to  Lady  Carbery  with  pleasure,  for  a  few  years 
later  he  sent  down  several  stags  to  furnish  the  park  at 
Golden  Grove. 

The  king's  fortunes  were  the  subject  of  anxious 
solicitude  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  he  discussed  them 
with  zest  and  prolixity.  In  this  same  year,  1648,  he 
had  a  meeting  with  Dr.  Thomas  Bayly,  who  had  been 
closely  identified  with  Charles  I.  at  Raglan  Castle. 
Bayly  professed  to  guide  the  king's  conscience,  and 
had  published  an  imaginary  conversation  between  the 
king  and  the  Marquis  of  Worcester,  which  was  much 
talked  about  at  the  moment.  "What  I  delivered  in 
transitu,  when  I  had  the  happiness  last  to  meet  you,  I 
know  I  poured  into  a  breast  locked  up  as  religiously 
as  the  priests  of  Cybele,"  is  a  phrase  which  Taylor  uses 
in  a  very  long  letter,  addressed  to  Bayly  on  the  Vigils 
of  Christmas  1648.  According  to  his  biographers, 
Bayly  left  England  for  France  and  Flanders  in  the 
latter  part  of  1646,  and  did  not  return  until  after  the 
king's  death,  but  this  must  be  a  mistake.  Bayly  was 
hardly  worthy  of  Taylor's  sympathy ;  he  was  a  fussy 
and  braggart  Royalist,  who  ultimately  turned  Romanist, 
attacked  the  institutions  of  England,  and  died  obscurely 
in  Italy. 

Great,  however,  as  was  Jeremy  Taylor's  interest  in 
passing  events,  and  in  the  fate  of  those  friends  who 
were  most  dear  to  him,  they  did  not  occupy  all  his 
thoughts  during  these  distracted  years.  In  1649  he 
completed,  and  gave  to  the  world,  a  work  of  large 
proportions,  and  eminently  original  plan,  which  ex- 
hibited his  literary  powers  as  they  had  never  been 
exhibited  before.  The  Great  Exemplar  was  in  the  purely 
intellectual  field  as  novel  an  enterprise  as  Liberty  of 


54  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Prophesying  had  been  in  the  moral  and  controversial. 
It  was  an  attempt,  on  a  huge  scale,  at  the  production 
of  a  class  of  book,  no  specimen  of  which  had  been  pre- 
sented to  the  English  public  before,  but  which  has  been 
abundantly  imitated  since,  and  has  had  its  lasting  in- 
fluence on  our  literature.  Before  we  consider  the 
peculiarly  novel  characteristics  of  this  work,  and  its 
disposition  and  structure,  it  will  be  well  to  bring  to- 
gether what  can  be  recovered  as  to  its  history. 

That  it  was  not  designed  at  Golden  Grove,  or  even 
mainly  written  there,  is  evident,  from  the  part  in  its 
preparation  which  was  taken  by  Lord  Northampton. 
That  nobleman,  as  we  have  seen,  was  killed  at  the 
battle  of  Hopton  Heath,  early  in  1643.  His  share, 
therefore,  in  the  conception  of  The  Great  Exemplar  must 
be  precedent  to  that  date;  and  as  he  was  closely  engaged 
in  military  duties  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil 
War  until  his  death,  Taylor's  communications  with 
him  on  the  subject  are  probably  not  to  be  placed  later 
than  the  middle  of  1642.  But  up  to  that  time,  if  we 
possessed  no  other  evidence  than  that  which  has  been 
known  to  Taylor's  biographers,  we  should  be  justified 
in  believing  the  divine  to  be  a  docile  and  unquestioning 
disciple  of  the  Oxford  casuists,  a  submissive  pupil  of 
Laud  in  the  propaganda  of  Thorough,  placed  at  All 
Souls  College,  and  remaining  there,  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  ministering  to  the  cause  by  his  patriotic  learn- 
ing and  storehouse  of  instances. 

It  is,  therefore,  of  extraordinary  interest  to  learn 
that  at  a  date  which  cannot  be  later  than  1642  a 
single  far-sighted  friend  had  perceived  that  Taylor  was 
throwing  away  his  genius  upon  "  the  spinosities  of  the 
schools,"  and  had  determined  to  divert  him  into  a 


II.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  55 

more  primrose  path.  The  language  Jeremy  Taylor 
uses  must  be  carefully  examined.  He  says  that  the 
Earl  of  Northampton's  mind  was  the  "  soil "  in  which 
"the  first  design  of  these  papers,"  that  is  to  say,  of 
The  Great  Exemplar,  "grew";  that  "what  that  rare 
person  conceived,  I  was  left  to  the  pains  and  danger 
of  bringing  forth."  The  image  here  is  exactly  the  same 
which  has  fascinated  and  baffled  successive  generations 
of  Shakespearian  critics.  As  "W.  H.  was  "the  sole 
begetter"  of  the  Sonnets,  so  Lord  Northampton  was 
the  sole  "  conceiver  "  of  The  Great  Exemplar.  In  each 
case,  it  is  not  rational  to  doubt,  there  is  an  intention 
to  attribute  to  a  noble  friend  the  suggestion,  the  bias, 
which  led  the  writer  along  a  new  experiment  in  his 
art.  In  each  case,  below  the  form  of  compliment,  is  a 
statement  of  cause  and  effect  which  it  is  preposterous 
to  overlook  or  to  minimise. 

In  Taylor's  case,  when  he  made  his  statement,  the 
widowed  Countess  of  Northampton,  who  remained  his 
friend,  was  alive  and  well  aware  of  the  circumstances. 
He  appeals  to  her  recollections :  "  Your  Honour  best 
knows "  how  mere  a  matter  of  honesty  it  is  for  the 
author  to  recall  the  facts.  When  the  lady  reads 
the  pages  of  The  Great  Exemplar  she  will  recollect  at 
once  that  her  late  husband,  "  that  excellent  personage, 
was  their  first  root,"  and  that  they  are  "the  fruits  of 
his,"  Lord  Northampton's,  "  abode."  This  is  a  curious 
phrase,  but  I  take  it  to  mean  no  more  than  his  abode 
on  earth,  before  he  was  "  transplanted  to  heaven "  by 
his  sudden  death.  Lady  Northampton  is  conjured  to 
welcome  the  book  "for  its  first  relation,"  that  is  to  say, 
no  doubt,  for  the  fact  that  its  origin  and  substance  will 
both  of  them  recall  sad  and  yet  proud  memories  to  her 


56  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

mind;  and  to  set  its  imperfections  down  not  to  its 
"fountain,"  her  husband,  but  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  who 
is  "  the  channel  of  its  progress  and  emanation." 

If  these  phrases  have  any  meaning  at  all,  it  is  plain 
that  they  indicate  that  Lord  Northampton,  who  must 
have  had  close  opportunities  of  studying  the  mind  of 
Taylor,  was  sorry  to  see  so  splendid  a  gift  of  rhetoric 
and  pathos  expended  on  "problems  and  inactive  dis- 
courses," that  is  to  say  on  hair-splitting  casuistry.  He 
persuaded  the  pupil  of  Laud  and  Eichard  Montagu 
that  it  was  "  the  nature  of  disputings,  that  they  begin 
commonly  in  mistakes,  proceed  with  zeal  and  fancy,  and 
end  not  at  all  but  in  schisms  and  uncharitable  names, 
and  too  often  dip  their  feet  in  blood."  In  saying  this, 
Lord  Northampton  found  an  eager  listener.  Humble 
and  tractable  as  Taylor  was,  and  honest  in  his  service 
for  Laud,  he  had  to  confess  that  he  was  "weary  and 
toiled  with  rowing  up  and  down  in  the  seas  of  ques- 
tions which  the  interests  of  Christendom  have  com- 
menced." The  design  which  his  noble  friend  sketched 
out,  and  which  the  earl's  premature  death  forbade  him 
to  enjoy  in  its  execution,  was  no  less  than  this,  "  to  put 
a  portion  of  the  holy  fire  into  a  repository,  which  might 
help  to  re-enkindle  the  incense,  when  it  shall  please 
God  religion  shall  return,  and  all  His  servants  sing  In 
convertendo  captivitatem  Sion  with  a  voice  of  eucharist." 

If  we  turn  to  Tlie  Great  Exemplar  to  see  how  this 
experiment  was  carried  out,  we  are  first  of  all  impressed 
by  the  negative  qualities  of  the  book.  It  has  none  of 
the  dryness,  none  of  the  nakedness  which  had  indis- 
putably been  the  growing  faults  of  English  theology. 
The  author  glances  at  the  works  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  he  decides  that  "  they  may  be  learned,  but  they 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  57 

are  not  wise."  He  will  sacrifice  the  display  of  learn- 
ing ;  there  shall  be  no  discussion  of  knotty  points ;  he 
will  not  write  a  thesis,  or  engage  in  a  controversy,  or 
quote  the  opinions  of  contending  fathers  in  a  dry  light 
of  "unprofitable  and  ineffective  contemplation";  he 
will  make  a  living  book,  and  address  it  to  those  "  who 
can  believe  and  love,"  not  to  those  that  can  merely 
"  consider  and  love."  He  has  the  boldest  views  about 
his  literary  mission.  He  will  not  scold  or  argue, 
he  will  entertain.  He  is  afraid  neither  of  the  word  nor 
the  idea ;  let  us  be  equally  bold,  and  admit  that  his 
design  is  to  please,  even  to  enthrall.  He  rates  the 
theologians  with  their  narrow  range  of  intellectual 
interest.  He  says  that  it  is  far  wiser  to  read  Homer, 
JEschylus,  and  Euripides  than  to  bury  one's  self  in  the 
patristic  triflings  of  the  schoolmen. 

He  was  not  ignorant  of  the  scandal  which  his  book 
would  cause.  It  was  not  thought  more  decent  for  a 
churchman  to  appear  without  his  Latinity  upon  him 
than  to  go  up  into  the  pulpit  in  secular  habit.  Even 
Chillingworth  had  been  blamed  for  pursuing  his 
theme  on  lines  too  logical,  without  the  constant  applica- 
tion of  tags  from  the  Church  authorities ;  he  had  been 
roundly  accused  of  want  of  "learning."  It  required 
immense  courage  on  Taylor's  part  to  defy  all  the 
criticism  of  his  class,  and  fold  away  his  unquestioned 
erudition  as  a  robe  not  fit  to  be  worn  on  this  particular 
occasion.  He  says  "  I  have  despised  my  own  reputa- 
tion " ;  he  has  written  a  popular  book,  "  embossed  with 
unnecessary  but  graceful  ornament."  He  knows  that 
his  clerical  brethren  will  be  scandalised,  but  he  believes 
that  he  is  divinely  led.  "My  spark,"  he  cries,  "may 
grow  greater  by  kindling  my  brother's  taper,  and  God 


58  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

may  be  glorified  in  us  both."  So  he  bravely  puts  forth 
the  earliest  modern  treatise  of  popular  piety,  "inter- 
mixing something  of  pleasure  with  the  use,"  and  not 
shrinking  from  the  hope  that  his  readers  will  find  in 
it  that  "  which  will  better  entertain  their  spirits  than 
a  romance."  The  result  was  a  noble  and  too-often 
forgotten  manual  which  was  the  pioneer  of  a  whole 
literature  of  piety. 

The  Great  Exemplar  is  a  celebration  of  the  beauty  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  God  and  Man.  The  up-raised,  ecstatic 
movement  of  the  paragraphs  betrays  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  writer ;  he  is  Christ-possessed.  The  most  gracious 
voice  then  to  be  heard  in  England  is  lifted  like  that  of 
a  nightingale  above  the  frogs  and  ravens  of  the  age. 
The  form  he  adopts  is  interesting;  it  is  cunningly 
devised  to  sustain  and  divert  the  attention,  to  prevent 
weariness,  to  prolong  the  pleasure  of  the  reader  by 
division  and  variety.  It  opens  with  a  preface,  one  of 
Taylor's  exquisitely  winning  introductions,  in  which 
the  great  family  of  Man  is  described,  the  necessity 
of  discipline  in  its  organism  demonstrated,  and  Chris- 
tianity shown  to  be  the  most  perfect  law  conceivable 
for  its  direction.  Then,  after  an  exhortation  to  the 
imitation  of  Jesus,  the  romance  begins. 

The  string  on  which  the  whole  sequence  of  pearls 
is  hung  is  the  narrative  of  the  life  of  Christ  on  earth. 
The  author  tells  the  story  as  he  chooses.  There  is  no 
attempt  at  Biblical  criticism,  even  as  in  those  days 
it  was  understood;  no  dealing  with  difficulties  of 
parallel  Evangelists ;  no  weighing  of  evidence.  Taylor 
selects  such  versions  of  the  narrative  as  best  suit  his 
purpose,  not  shrinking  from  the  traditions  of  a  later 
age,  if  they  attract  him.  For  instance,  he  accepts 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  59 

without  a  question  the  legend  of  the  prostration  of 
the  Egyptian  gods  when  the  Infant  crossed  the  border. 
If  an  incident  inflames  his  imagination,  he  lingers  over 
it  as  long  as  he  chooses;  he  weaves  his  fancy,  for 
instance,  for  page  after  page,  around  the  apparition 
of  the  Star  of  Epiphany.  What  he  dwells  upon,  ex- 
clusively, is  the  imaginative  and  the  pathetic.  He 
wishes  to  draw  men  away  from  the  weariness  of  con- 
trdversy  to  the  exquisite  mysteries  of  pure  religion. 

But  he  knows  that  sustained  rhetoric  fatigues  the 
mind.  He  is  careful  to  vary  his  theme.  Accordingly, 
after  each  section  of  his  narrative,  he  applies  that  frag- 
ment of  the  story  to  a  disquisition  on  its  practical 
bearing  upon  life,  to  general  remarks  about  men's 
religious  duty  as  illustrated  by  what  he  has  just 
described.  He  rivets  the  attention  of  his  readers  by 
abrupt  application  of  the  history  to  the  needs  of 
modern  society,  to  the  family,  to  the  state,  to  friend- 
ship and  to  the  conduct  of  affairs.  Nor  is  this  enough 
to  secure  the  cunning  variety  of  his  design,  which  is 
further  gained  by  the  introduction  of  short  prayers, 
each  like  a  gush  of  music.  In  these  devotions,  the 
most  exquisite  of  their  kind  in  the  English  language, 
Jeremy  Taylor  has  had  no  rival.  They  display,  in  the 
most  complete  manner,  the  delicate  wholesomeness  of 
his  conscience  and  the  inimitable  distinction  of  his 
style.  Nowhere  does  he  open  a  well  of  English  more 
undefiled  than  in  his  admirable  private  prayers. 

It  has  been  made  a  matter  for  regret  that  all  the 
early  sermons  of  Jeremy  Taylor  (for  the  lecture  on 
Gunpowder  Plot  was  no  true  sermon)  are  lost  to  us. 
The  regret  is  needless;  they  are  certainly  embedded 
in  The  Great  Exemplar.  The  careful  reader  will 


60  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

distinguish  twenty  "  discourses  "  in  the  body  of  that 
work,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  each  of  these  was 
preached  from  a  pulpit.  It  is  obvious  that  it  was  the 
consideration  of  the  rare  originality  and  beauty  of  some 
of  these  sermons  which  inspired  Lord  Northampton 
with  his  fortunate  idea  of  urging  Jeremy  Taylor  to 
weave  around  them  a  popular  life  of  Christ.  Internal 
evidence  would  alone  be  sufficient  to  persuade  us  of 
this  fact,  were  there  not  a  point  of  external  evidence 
which  confirms  it.  Some  years  after  Taylor's  death, 
two  manuscript  sermons  of  his  were  discovered,  and  pub- 
lished in  1675  :  these  are  known  as  Christ's  Yoke  an  Easy 
Yoke  and  The  Gate  to  Heaven  a  strait  Gate.  They  were 
issued  together,  with  a  new  portrait  of  the  bishop,  and 
as  having  been  supplied  by  "a  person  of  honour  yet 
living,"  probably  the  third  Earl  of  Northampton,  who 
did  not  die  until  1681.  Of  these  sermons,  on  examina- 
tion, the  first  in  its  entirety,  and  portions  of  the  second, 
are  found  in  the  mass  of  The  Great  Exemplar.  They 
were  inadvertently  printed,  as  novelties,  and  no  doubt 
from  copies  left  behind  him  by  Taylor  in  his  flight  to 
Wales  in  1644. 

It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  there  are  not  flaws  in 
the  execution  of  this  wonderful  book.  It  is  not  sus- 
tained throughout  at  the  very  high  level  of  its  finest 
sections.  At  its  best,  it  is  written  with  enchanting 
fluidity  and  sweetness,  the  bright,  elastic  phrase  leaping 
into  light.  But  we  begin  already  to  perceive  that 
Jeremy  Taylor  has  two  manners,  the  one  far  less 
attractive  than  the  other.  When  he  says  : — 

"Filling  the  rooms  of  the  understanding  with  airy  and 
ineffective  notions  is  just  such  an  excellency  as  it  is  in  a  man 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  61 

to  imitate  the  voice  of  birds  ;  at  his  very  best  the  nightingale 
shall  excel  him  "  ; 

or, 

"  God's  authority  is  like  sacred  fire  in  an  earthen  censer,  as 
holy  as  if  it  were  kindled  with  the  fanning  of  a  cherub's  wing, 
or  placed  just  under  the  propitiatory 1  upon  a  golden  altar," 

the  effect  is,  as  Coleridge  has  excellently  put  it, 
dazzling.  But  this  highly  ornate  manner  often  gives 
place  to  a  style  that  is  rigorously  plain  and  simple,  and 
this  latter  is  apt  to  decline  to  the  pedestrian.  It  does 
so  decline,  too  often,  in  what  the  reader  then  comes  to 
regard  as  the  interminable  prolongation  of  The  Great 
Exemplar.  Indeed,  to  be  plain,  the  excessive  length 
of  the  book  is  to-day  its  principal,  and  perhaps  its 
hopeless  fault. 

This  was  not  a  fault  at  the  time  of  its  composition. 
In  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  people  pre- 
ferred their  books  of  entertainment  to  be  of  immense 
length.  The  kind  of  popular  literature  which  Jeremy 
Taylor  directly  challenged  in  The  Great  Exemplar  was 
the  heroic  novel  recently  introduced  from  France.  In 
his  prison,  Charles  I.  was  now  reading  the  Cassandra 
of  Calprenede,  a  romance  in  no  fewer  than  twenty- 
three  volumes.  Dorothy  Osborne,  in  these  same  years, 
was  making  lists  of  the  lovers  in  the  interminable 
Almahide,  and  in  the  elephantine  Grand  Cyrus  of  Mlle  de 
Scudery.  Hitherto  these  huge  books  had  been  chiefly 
read  in  French,  but  the  tide  of  translation  was  begin- 
ning to  set  in.  Polexandre  had  been  published  in 
English  in  1647,  and  Artamenes  was  shortly  to  follow, 
in  six  colossal  folio  volumes.  Bulk  and  prolixity  were 

1  Mercy -seat. 


€2  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

no  disadvantages  in  that  age  of  the  Commonwealth, 
when  Puritan  asceticism  had  sealed  up  the  sources  of 
genial  enjoyment.  In  the  country  all  festivities  and 
sports  had  been  abolished ;  in  the  town,  with  edicts  of 
vindictive  ferocity,  all  play-houses  and  places  of  amuse- 
ment had  been  closed.  The  only  entertainment  left 
was  literature,  and  people  could  not  have  it  too  elabor- 
ately prolonged.  Yet  even  Jeremy  Taylor,  except  in 
one  notable  instance,  was  never  again  so  inordinately 
lengthy. 

His  holy  romance,  since  he  permits  us  to  style  it  so, 
was  eminently  successful.  But  it  did  not  pass  entirely 
without  attack.  Jeremy  Taylor,  the  most  ingenuous 
of  writers,  was  impudently  accused  of  a  literary  fraud. 
It  was  asserted  that  his  book  was  not  his  own,  but 
merely  translated  from  a  folio  Vita  Jesu  Christi,  printed 
at  Paris  in  1509,  by  Ludolphus  of  Saxony.  There 
seems  to  be  always  somebody  ready  to  embark  on 
these  Shandean  investigations,  eager  "to  pluck  my 
mother's  thread-paper  out  of  Slawkenbergius'  book." 
Ludolphus,  even  in  those  days,  cannot  have  been  an 
author  of  easy  reference,  but  a  century  and  a  half  later 
Heber  succeeded  in  discovering  him,  and  allayed  sus- 
picion. "It  is  scarcely  possible,"  Heber  says,  "to 
find  two  books  written  on  any  one  subject  which  have 
so  few  coincidences  of  arrangement,  sentiment,  or 
expression."  Deeply  imprinted  in  the  human  breast 
is  the  desire  to  prove  that  every  work  was  not  written 
by  its  own  author  but  by  another  man.  Those  who 
are  convinced  that  all  the  poetry  and  drama  in  our 
literature  was  the  composition  of  Bacon,  should  not 
pause  until  they  have  proved  that  all  our  theology  was 
written  by  Ludolphus  of  Saxony. 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  63 

A  deep  serenity  of  spirit  is  the  key-note  of  The  &reat 
Exemplar ;  but  it  is  not  fantastic  to  read  in  the  eighth 
section  of  the  first  part,  where  a  curious  effect  of  alarm 
and  agitation  is  produced,  a  record  of  Taylor's  feelings 
in  the  midst  of  the  revolt  of  1648.  He  speaks  of  the 
signs  of  the  times,  "  no  sermons  there  but  when  soli- 
tude is  made  popular,  and  the  city  moves  into  the 
wilderness ;  no  comforts  of  a  public  religion,  or  visible 
remonstrances  of  the  communion  of  saints.  Of  all 
the  kinds  of  spiritual  mercy,  only  one  can  there 
properly  be  exercised,  and  of  the  corporeal  none  at 
all."  But,  as  he  presently  remembers,  "the  passions 
of  the  sensitive  soul  are  like  an  exhalation,"  and  when 
the  danger  had  passed  by,  his  peace  returned.  The 
first  part  of  The  Great  Exemplar  is  dedicated,  in  terms 
of  unimpaired  affection,  to  Lord  Hatton  of  Kirby,  but 
this  is  almost  the  last  occasion  on  which  we  meet  the 
name  of  this  nobleman  in  our  narrative.  Already  in 
August  1648  he  had  withdrawn  to  Paris,  where  he 
began  by  keeping  open  house  for  the  emigres,  but  soon 
fell  into  poverty,  and  suffered  a  degradation  of  char- 
acter from  which  he  never  recovered.  So  long  as 
his  son  Christopher  remained  at  Newton  Hall  School, 
this  would  be  a  link  between  Taylor  and  his  former 
patron. 

A  persistent  legend  connects  Jeremy  Taylor  with 
the  last  hours  of  Charles  I.  One  of  his  descendants 
possesses  a  watch  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  king ; 
and  two  diamonds  and  a  ruby,  set  in  a  ring,  which  are 
now  in  New  York,  are  supposed  to  be  royal  gifts  made 
on  the  road  to  execution.  We  are  told,  also,  of  "a  few 
pearls  and  rubies  which  had  ornamented  the  ebony 
case  in  which  the  king  kept  his  Bible."  Without 


64  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

throwing  any  doubt  upon  the  authenticity  of  these 
relics,  it  may  be  observed  that  Charles  I.  may  have 
presented  them  to  his  former  chaplain  on  various  and 
less  tragic  occasions  than  that  of  his  death.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  room  for  Jeremy  Taylor  at  that  last 
memorable  scene.  On  the  23rd  of  December  1648, 
Charles  was  conveyed  from  Hurst  Castle,  closely  guarded, 
to  Windsor.  It  is  possible  that  certain  friends  might 
be  smuggled  in  to  take  their  leave  of  him  before  the 
19th  of  January,  when  he  was  brought  up  to  St. 
James's  Palace.  But  up  to  the  latter  date,  Charles 
had  not  arrived  at  such  a  realisation  of  his  fate  as 
would  lead  him  to  divide  his  possessions  into  keep- 
sakes. After  it,  and  up  till  the  fatal  30th,  even  Juxon 
and  Herbert  could  scarcely  pass  through  the  rude 
guard  of  soldiers,  smoking  and  drinking  in  the  very 
precincts  of  the  king's  bedroom.  One  of  the  objects 
mentioned  above  is  said  to  bear  the  date,  August  1647. 
This,  we  have  been  recently  told,  "is  evidently  too 
early."  It  appears  to  me,  on  the  contrary,  the  date 
most  easy  to  reconcile  with  history.  In  August  1647 
the  king  was  at  Putney,  permitted  to  see  his  friends, 
in  comparative  liberty  and  comfort.  He  had  a  few 
weeks  previously  been  reading  Liberty  of  Prophesying 
with  extreme  interest,  and  had  been  unable  on  all 
points  to  coincide  with  the  views  expressed  in  it.  He 
naturally  may  have  wished  to  discuss  it  with  its  author. 
For  the  moment,  everything  was  quiet  in  South  Wales ; 
for  the  moment  Cromwell  was  anxious  to  indulge  and 
conciliate  Charles.  No  conjectural  date  for  the  last 
meeting  between  Jeremy  Taylor  and  his  royal  master 
seems  to  offer  less  difficulty  than  this  legendary  one  of 
August  1647.  But  that  he  went  up  to  London  early 


ii.]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  65 

in  1649,  partly  to  carry  the  manuscript  of  The  Great 
Exemplar  to  the  publishers,  and  partly  to  see  Juxon, 
Duppa,  and  other  friends  is  highly  probable.  He  is 
.  said  to  have  been  consulted  about  the  king's  papers, 
and  to  have  suggested  the  title  of  the  Eikon  Basilike. 


CHAPTEE  III 

RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE 
(1650-1653) 

THE  retreat  into  which  Jeremy  Taylor  had  now  with- 
drawn, under  conditions  the  most  fortunate  which  his 
genius  could  have  desired,  is  situated  in  a  part  of  South 
Wales,  which  is  now  very  beautiful,  and  which  there 
is  reason  to  believe  was  then  more  beautiful  still. 
Golden  Grove  was  a  large  house,  standing  in  its  own 
undulating  park,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Towey,  but 
about  a  mile  from  that  river.  It  looked  across  the 
valley  to  a  still  lovelier  and  more  romantic  estate, 
Dynevor  Castle.  It  was  a  little  to  the  east  of  Grongar 
Hill,  and  shared  the  view  which  Dyer  described  some 
seventy  years  later  in  his  famous  poem,  being  situated 
an  the  midst  of  that 

"  long  and  level  lawn, 
On  which  a  dark  hill,  steep  and  high, 
Holds  and  charms  the  wandering  eye ; 
Deep  are  his  feet  in  Towey's  flood, 
His  sides  are  clothed  with  waving  wood  ; 
And  ancient  towers  crown  his  brow, 
That  cast  an  awful  look  below." 

This  was  the  scene  which  rose  before  Jeremy  Taylor 
every  morning,  as  he  left  Golden  Grove,  struck  north- 
ward across  the  meadows,  crossed  the  winding  Towey 

66 


CHAP,  in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  67 

at  some  fording-place  or  by  the  bridge  to  Llangathen, 
and  ascended,  past  the  ruin  which  Dyer  describes, 
round 

"  Whose  ragged  walls  the  ivy  creeps, 
And  with  her  arms  from  falling  keeps," 

on  his  way  to  the  school-house  at  Newton  Hall. 

The  ancient  market-town  of  Llandilovawr  was  some 
three  miles  off  to  the  north-east,  and  from  it,  skirting 
the  palings  of  Golden  Grove  park,  ran  the  high  road 
south  to  Llanelly.  At  that  time  the  valley  of  the 
Towey  seems  to  have  been  richly  wooded,  though  later 
on  the  timber  was  destroyed,  and  re-plantation  was  so 
neglected,  that  late  in  the  eighteenth  century  it  bore 
a  very  naked  aspect.  In  the  period  when  Jeremy 
Taylor  lived  there,  the  whole  surroundings  of  Golden 
Grove  must  have  been  romantic  in  the  extreme,  and 
their  delicate  and  picturesque  beauty  was  in  perfect 
harmony  with  his  florid  genius.  No  doubt,  in  his 
day,  the 

"  woods,  where  echo  talks, 
The  gardens  trim,  the  terrace-walks, 
The  wildernesses,  fragrant  brakes, 
The  gloomy  bowers  and  shining  lakes  " 

of  the  Towey  valley  were,  if  possible,  still  more  en- 
chanting than  when  Dyer  sang  of  them  in  the  dawn 
of  the  naturalistic  revival. 

The  church  of  Llanfihangel  -  Aberbythych,  where 
Taylor's  friend,  Nicholson,  ministered,  stood  at  the 
western  confines  of  the  park,  and  was  but  a  few 
minutes'  distance  from  the  rooms  placed  at  Taylor's 
disposal  at  the  mansion.  Here,  with  his  school  and 
his  ministrations  in  the  great  house,  and  with  long 
talks  with  a  few  wise  friends,  Taylor  lay  protected 


68  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

from  the  world  for  many  happy  years,  surrounded 
by  every  innocent  pleasure,  and  left  to  the  unbroken 
cultivation  of  his  eloquence  and  his  fancy.  It  is  to 
this  beautiful  retreat,  in  a  rich  valley  of  South  Wales, 
that  we  owe  the  ripest  products  of  his  intellect.  The 
stamp  of  the  physical  beauty  which  surrounded  him 
is  imprinted  upon  the  best  and  happiest  of  his  writings, 
and  we  may  say  that  Jeremy  Taylor  was  nourished  by 
the  Muses  in  the  park  of  Golden  Grove,  as  the  goat- 
herd Comatas  was  fed  with  honey  by  the  bees  while 
he  lay  imprisoned  in  his  master's  cedarn  chest.1 

The  conditions  of  Taylor's  life  at  Golden  Grove,  his 
extremely  sequestered  habits,  the  narrow  circle  in 
which  he  laboured  during  so  many  years,  his  direct 
responsibility  as  private  chaplain  to  the  lord  and  lady 
of  the  place,  give  us  authority  to  treat  as  autobiographi- 
cal certain  phrases  in  the  books  which  he  wrote  in 
Wales,  which,  if  he  had  lived  in  the  world  of  London, 
or  in  a  wide  and  uncritical  society  elsewhere,  might  be 
taken  as  conventional.  For  instance,  when  he  says 
that  every  truly  pious  man  "  sets  apart  some  solemn 
time  every  year,  in  which,  for  the  time  quitting  all 
worldly  business,  he  may  attend  wholly  to  fasting  and 
prayer,  and  the  dressing  of  his  soul  by  confessions, 
meditations  and  attendances  upon  God,"  it  is  obvious 
that  he  must  himself  have  made  such  an  annual  retreat 
his  practice,  or  any  one  of  the  few  inhabitants  of  Llan- 
fihangel-Aberbythych  could  have  charged  him  with  in- 
consistency. There  is  the  same  evidence  that  he  was 

1  A  rough  engraving  of  Golden  Grove  adorns  the  1657  edition 
of  the  Polemical  Discourses.  The  house  was  entirely  burned 
down  in  1729.  In  1816  an  avenue  of  trees  in  the  park  was  still 
traditionally  known  as  Jeremy  Taylor's  Walk. 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  69 

in  the  habit,  several  times  during  the  day,  of  slipping 
aside  to  "  make  frequent  colloquies  or  short  discoursings 
between  God  and  his  own  soul,"  on  which  occasions, 
as  we  know  that  he  did  not  approve  of  extempore 
prayer,  he  certainly  made  use  of  some  of  the  innumer- 
able short  "devotions"  which  form  so  considerable  a 
part  of  his  published  writings.  Again,  when  he  speaks, 
not  once  or  twice,  of  the  advantage  of  getting  out  of 
bed  "  sometimes  "  so  as  "  to  see  the  preparation  which 
the  sun  makes  when  he  is  coming  forth  from  his 
chambers  of  the  east,"  it  is  hardly  unreasonable  to  feel 
assured  that  these  remarks  reflect  one  of  his  personal 
habits.  These  little  touches  must  not  be  pushed  too 
far,  but  they  help  to  build  up  for  us  a  portrait  of  the 
man. 

The  earliest  literary  exercise  on  which  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  occupied  after  the  death  of  the  king  was  a  practi- 
cal work  on  conduct,  almost  a  technical  directory  or 
manual,  the  celebrated  Rule  and  Exercises  of  Holy  Living. 
This  was  published  in  1650,  with  a  long  titlepage  ex- 
plaining that  the  treatise  dealt  with  "  the  means  and 
instruments  of  obtaining  every  virtue,  and  the  remedies 
against  every  vice,  and  considerations  serving  to  the 
resisting  all  temptations,  together  with  prayers  con- 
taining the  Whole  Duty  of  a  Christian,"  a  summary 
which  neatly  defines  the  contents  of  the  volume.  It  is 
not  very  easy  to  speak  critically  of  this  famous  book, 
which  is  certainly  the  best  known  of  all  Taylor's  works, 
and  that  which  represents  his  thought  and  language 
most  directly  to  the  majority  of  readers.  It  has  been 
incessantly  reprinted,  and  is  to  be  found  in  most  house- 
holds where  books  of  any  gravity  of  composition  are 
admitted.  So  widely  circulated  is  it,  indeed,  that  its 


70  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

form  and  tenour  have  without  doubt  tended  to  create 
a  certain  notion  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  style  and  manner. 
It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  find  terms  in  which  to  ac- 
knowledge the  value  of  the  Holy  Living,  and  yet  to 
deprecate  its  being  taken  as  an  example  of  the  habitual 
or  of  the  best  side  of  its  author's  writing.  But  it  is 
necessary  to  do  this,  and  to  insist  on  the  defects  of  the 
book. 

These  defects  rise  out  of  its  practical  merits.  It 
is  a  didactic  guide  to  the  holy  life.  It  is  above  all 
things  technical.  It  is  "fitted  to  all  occasions,  fur- 
nished for  all  necessities " ;  it  is  a  guide  to  per- 
fection, a  map  of  all  the  virtues  pushed  to  their 
most  inaccessible  altitude.  The  author  admits  no 
excuse  for  any  kind  of  frailty ;  he  pleads  throughout 
for  the  most  austere  and  lofty  practice  as  if  it  were 
easily  to  be  obtained.  His  ideal  saint  walks  in  spotless 
glory  along  the  mountain-tops,  stepping  upon  virgin 
snow.  In  order  to  enhance  this  imaginary  perfection, 
the  preacher  treats  all  forms  of  human  weakness  with 
disdain,  admits  no  pardonable  frailties,  demands  the  debt 
of  law  to  be  paid  in  full,  to  the  last  farthing.  This  is 
a  point  of  view  which  may  lend  itself  to  admirable 
effects  in  the  hands  of  a  theological  philosopher,  but 
this  Jeremy  Taylor  was  not.  He  was  a  very  great 
writer,  but  it  Avill  scarcely  be  pretended  that  he  was  a 
great  thinker.  The  scope  of  the  Holy  Living  is  one 
peculiarly  unfavourable  to  a  writer  of  Taylor's  genius. 
It  is  essentially  impersonal  and  objective;  it  is  all 
written  from  the  outside,  in  general  terms.  But  we 
have  already  suspected,  and  we  shall  have  abundant 
opportunity  of  proving  as  we  proceed,  that  Jeremy 
Taylor's  treatment  of  conduct  is  apt  to  be  obvious, 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  71 

trite,  and  starved  unless  he  has  occasion  to  enrich  it 
with  the  fruits  of  his  own  experience,  or  to  colour  it 
with  his  own  vision.  An  impersonal  work  of  Jeremy 
Taylor,  therefore,  sinks  immediately  to  the  second 
level  in  a  critical  survey,  even  although  its  practical 
value,  its  "  usefulness  "  may  have  kept  it  on  the  highest 
level  in  the  ordinary  life  of  the  Church.  Let  us  have 
the  courage  to  say  it — high  as  the  devotional  value  is 
— the  Holy  Living  cannot  be  regarded  as  one  of  its 
author's  principal  contributions  to  literature. 

It  has,  however,  parts  of  great  passion  and  beauty, 
where  the  individual  note  is  not  lacking.  The  dedica- 
tion, for  instance,  is  a  piece  of  splendid  invective,  a 
lamentation  over  the  miseries  which  followed  1649,  and 
an  implied  denunciation  of  the  men  who  caused  them. 
The  author  breaks  out  in  a  cry  of  angry  grief : — 

"  I  have  lived  to  see  religion  painted  upon  banners,  and 
thrust  out  of  churches,  and  the  temple  turned  into  a  taber- 
nacle, and  that  tabernacle  made  ambulatory,  and  covered  with 
skins  of  beasts  and  torn  curtains,  and  God  to  be  worshipped, 
not  as  He  is,  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  an  afflicted  Prince, 
the  King  of  sufferings,  .  .  .  but  rather  as  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

But  this  wail  presently  dies  away  in  resignation. 
No  man  shall  have  reason  to  be  angry  with  Taylor 
"for  refusing  to  mingle  in  his  unnecessary  or  vicious 
persecution."  He  bows  the  head,  he  accepts  retirement, 
poverty,  humiliation.  The  note  sinks  deeper  and 
deeper.  He  will  neither  strive  nor  cry.  In  earlier 
years  he  fought  for  his  prince  and  for  his  church,  but 
what  is  there  now  left  to  contend  about  ?  Life  is 
empty  and  barren;  there  is  nothing  to  expect  or  to 
fear.  He  is  no  longer  apprehensive,  no  longer  hopeful ; 
the  king  is  dead,  the  bishops  are  dishonoured,  the 


72  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Church  degraded.  What  is  there  left  to  struggle  for, 
since  the  game  is  up  ?  In  this  mood  he  prefers  to  lay 
down  a  clear  creed  and  directory  for  conduct.  In  the 
new  naked  era  which  has  set  in,  men  are  bewildered 
how  to  live.  He  will  draft  regulations  for  behaviour 
after  the  flood,  for  men  who  crowd  back  to  the  village 
only  to  find  priest  and  altar,  bell  and  prayer-book, 
swept  away.  We  shall  not  appreciate  the  appeal  which 
the  Holy  Living  made  to  Anglican  minds,  if  we  do 
not  recognise  the  fierce  and  ironical  resignation  of  its 
despairing,  royalist  preface. 

Of  the  general  plan  of  the  treatise,  it  must  be  said 
that  it  has  the  formal  defects  of  all  such  cut-and-dried 
formularies,  but  especially  of  those  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Its  four  main  chapters  deal  with  holiness, 
and  how  to  practise  and  maintain  it;  with  sobriety 
under  five  or  six  heads ;  with  justice, — a  chapter  which 
has  been  praised  as  a  specimen  of  "  casuistry  in  its 
highest  and  noblest  sense";  and  with  the  duties  of 
religion.  The  great  difficulty  which  lies  before  those 
who  unreservedly  praise  the  Holy  Living  is  the  lack  of 
clear  reasoning  in  the  mind  of  the  author.  He  is 
eloquent  about  the  vices,  but  rather  vague  and  ineffec- 
tive in  his  definitions  of  those  which  do  not  particularly 
assail  him.  It  is  amusing  to  see  how  very  sensible  and 
cautious  he  is  in  his  treatment  of  excessive  indulgence 
in  the  pleasures  of  the  table.  Lord  Carbery,  one  is 
tempted  to  believe,  was  something  of  a  gourmand.  It 
must  be  remembered,  if  this  criticism  should  seem  to 
be  touched  with  flippancy,  that  all  the  directions  for  the 
conduct  of  life  were  bound  to  be  either  entirely  vague,  or 
else  marked  with  a  curious  precision,  in  consequence  of 
the  author's  office  as  private  chaplain  in  a  great  house, 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  73 

isolated  from  the  rest  of  mankind.  Hence,  the  extreme 
looseness  and  indefiniteness  of  his  diatribes  against 
temptations  which  were  not  likely  to  fall  in  the  way  of 
his  small  circle  of  auditors. 

Nor,  in  this  connection,  must  we  pass  without  one 
word  of  discrimination  over  the  section  on  carnal 
voluptuousness,  which  he  found  it  proper  to  include. 
Even  as  compared  with  the  language  of  other  seven- 
teenth-century theologians,  who  were  anything  but 
mealy-mouthed,  Taylor  here  is  disagreeably  broad  and 
rough.  It  is  useless  to  deny,  what  is  an  historical 
fact,  that  this  part  of  his  book  has  been  a  stumbling- 
block  to  hundreds  of  readers.  Taylor  was  conscious, 
himself,  that  his  treatment  of  this  delicate  theme  would 
be  distasteful  to  many,  and  might  possibly  give  offence. 
He  apologises  for  it,  and  his  apology  is  not  happy ;  he 
says : — 

"  If  any  man  will  snatch  the  pure  taper  from  my  hand  and 
hold  it  to  the  devil,  he  will  only  burn  his  own  fingers,  but 
shall  not  rob  me  of  the  reward  of  my  care  and  good  inten- 
tion." 

This  shows  that  he  had  been  inclined,  and  perhaps 
advised,  to  omit  or  to  modify  his  expressions.  It  is  a 
pity  that  he  did  not  act  on  the  suggestion,  for  these 
paragraphs  do  not  make  for  edification.  Nor  can  a 
reader  to-day  forbear  gently  reminding  Jeremy  Taylor 
of  what  he  has  himself  to  say,  so  wisely  and  liberally, 
on  this  question  of  discretion,  in  the  sermon  called 
"The  Good  and  Evil  Tongue."  It  needs  a  sterner 
satirist  or  else  a  more  human  and  pitiful  moralist  than 
he  was  to  deal  successfully  with  so  very  embarrassing 
a  matter.  But  the  section  was  needed  in  his  formal 


74  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

scheme,  and  he  felt  obliged  to  include  it.  In  the 
course  of  a  chapter  which  we  may  be  disposed  to  regret, 
however,  occurs  a  mystical  paragraph  about  virginity 
which  we  should  have  been  unwilling  indeed  to 
spare : — 

"  Virginity  is  a  life  of  angels,  the  enamel  of  the  soul,  the 
huge  advantage  of  religion,  the  great  opportunity  for  the  re- 
tirements of  devotion,  and,  being  empty  of  cares,  it  is  full  of 
prayers." 

From  another  passage  in  the  same  chapter,  we  learn 
for  the  first  time  that  Jeremy  Taylor  was  a  believer  in 
the  possibility  of  contemporary  witchcraft. 

A  literary  feature  which  is  very  strongly  marked  in 
the  Holy  Living  is  the  author's  dependence  at  this  time 
on  the  poets  of  antiquity.  His  arguments  against  the 
vices  are  often  taken,  for  pages  together,  entirely  from 
the  Latin  and  Greek  classics,  and  sometimes  a  charm- 
ing turn  is  given  to  a  phrase  borrowed  straight  from 
^Eschylus  or  Martial.  The  systematic  evolution  of  his 
theme,  divided  in  the  provoking  seventeenth-century 
manner  into  heads  and  numbered  paragraphs — which 
Sir  William  Cornwallis,  in  his  Essays,  had  amusingly 
described  as  "  the  divisions  that  neat  scholars  use  to 
tie  up  the  breeches  of  an  argument  or  an  oration  with," 
— disturbs  the  reader's  pleasure,  and  we  are  not 
troubled  to  charge  the  preacher  with  inconsistency 
when  he  throws  this  tiresome  apparatus  away,  or 
forgets  it  for  awhile,  as  in  the  noble  apostrophe  on 
divine  love  in  the  fourth  chapter,  or  that  on  contented- 
ness  in  the  second  chapter,  where  we  come  upon 
enchanting  Horatian  phrases,  in  the  author's  true 
manner,  such  as  : — 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  75 

"  Corn  from  Sardinia,  herds  of  Calabrian  cattle,  meadows 
through  which  pleasant  Liris  glides,  silks  from  Tyrus,  and 
golden  chalices  to  drown  my  health  in,  are  nothing  but  instru- 
ments of  vanity  or  sin,  and  suppose  a  disease  in  the  soul  of 
him  that  longs  for  them,  or  admires  them." 

He  does  not  divide  his  subject  very  consistently, 
and  falls  into  illogical  overlappings  and  repetitions  of 
it,  -which  sometimes  suggest  such  patchwork  as  we  have 
noted,  though  there  carried  out  with  far  greater  skill, 
in  The  Great  Exemplar.  Towards  the  end  of  the  treatise, 
Taylor  inveighs  again  very  strongly  against  the 
efficacy  of  death-bed  repentances,  an  attitude  which 
was  frequently  to  recur  in  his  writings,  and  to  awaken 
much  animadversion.  Finally,  he  adds  to  the  treatise, 
and  closes  with,  an  essay  which  is  evidently  of  inde- 
pendent composition,  a  grave  and  harmonious  prepara- 
tion to  the  receiving  of  the  Holy  Sacrament.  Such 
in  its  variegated  literary  aspect  is  the  Holy  Living,  a 
treatise  to  which,  from  the  purely  intellectual  and 
artistic  points  of  view,  certain  exceptions  have  to  be 
made,  but  which  has  been  used  for  edification  by  pious 
churchmen  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

The  sequestered  stillness  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  life  was 
now  to  be  broken  in  upon  by  some  tragical  events. 
It  is  evident  that  a  very  warm  feeling  of  mutual 
esteem  had  grown  up  between  the  divine  and  his 
patron's  wife.  Frances,  Countess  of  Carbery,  was  the 
"tender  providence  that  shrouded  him  under  her  wings," 
and  her  wisdom,  goodness,  and  practical  ability  had 
come  to  be  the  mainstays  of  his  fortune.  This  prop 
was  removed  by  her  sudden  death  at  Golden  Grove,  on 
the  9th  of  October  1650.  The  atmosphere  of  Oxhey, 
where  she  was  brought  up,  had  been  contemplative  and 


76  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

intellectual ;  her  training  was  strict  and  austere ;  and 
we  are  told,  although  the  exact  meaning  of  these  words 
is  doubtful,  that  "God  had  provided  a  severe  and 
angry  education  to  chastise  the  forwardnesses  of  a 
young  spirit  and  a  fair  fortune."  She  married  Lord 
Carbery  in  June  1637,  being  very  youthful  at  the 
time.  At  the  date  of  her  death  she  was  still  in  flore 
cetatis,  probably  not  more  than  two  or  three  and  thirty 
years  of  age.  Whatever  vicissitudes  her  early  life  may 
have  suffered,  her  career  at  Golden  Grove  seems  to 
have  been  tranquil  and  pleasant  enough.  She  was 
very  clever  and  tactful;  a  placens  uxor,  she  had  an 
excellent  influence  over  her  husband,  who  adored 
her;  she  was  a  charming  talker,  and  eminently  easy 
of  access  —  conversation's  suavissimce.  As  her  years 
advanced,  she  became  more  remarkable  for  "  severity, 
modesty,  and  close  religion,"  and  of  so  exquisite  a 
moral  delicacy  that  "  you  might  as  well  have  suspected 
the  sun  to  smell  of  the  poppy  that  he  looks  on,  as 
that  she  could  have  been  a  person  apt  to  be  sullied 
by  the  breath  of  a  foul  question."  Her  constitution 
was  undermined  by  a  too-constant  burden  of  child- 
bearing.  During  her  brief  married  life,  she  brought 
into  the  world  ten  children,  of  whom  eight  survived 
her,  and  from  the  bed  of  her  latest  daughter,  Althamia, 
she  never  rose  again.  It  appears  that  she  had  an 
intuition  of  her  approaching  end,  and  she  told  Jeremy 
Taylor,  before  Althamia  was  born,  that  she  had  to 
"go  a  great  way  in  a  little  time,"  and  must  trim  her 
lamp  and  be  ready  to  depart. 

Accordingly,  long  before  there  was  any  sign  of 
mortal  weakness  of  body,  Lady  Carbery,  having  "a 
strange  secret  persuasion  that  the  bringing  this  child 


m.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  77 

should  be  her  last  scene  of  life,"  passed  through  a 
paroxysm  of  terror,  which  presently  gave  way  to 
resignation,  except  when  she  thought  that  her  death 
might  be  attended  with  agonising  pain,  of  which  she 
had  a  constitutional  dread.  Her  fears  passed  away, 
however,  and  the  birth  of  her  child  was  normal,  but 
she  never  regained  her  strength,  and  faded  painlessly 
out  of  life,  merely  shivering  twice,  as  with  "  two  fits  of 
a  common  ague."  Jeremy  Taylor,  who  attended  her 
in  her  last  moments  with  spiritual  consolation,  wrote 
for  her  monument  a  long  Latin  inscription,  and  the 
following  English  portrait,  which  he  calls  a  drawing 
in  water  colours : — 

"She  was  ...  of  a  temperate,  plain  and  natural  diet, 
without  curiosity  or  an  intemperate  palate.  She  spent  less 
time  in  dressing  than  many  servants.  Her  recreations  were 
little  and  seldom,  her  prayers  often,  her  reading  much.  She 
was  of  a  most  noble  and  charitable  soul ;  a  great  lover  of 
honourable  actions,  and  as  great  a  despiser  of  base  things. 
Hugely  loving  to  oblige  others,  she  was  very  unwilling  to  be 
in  arrear  to  any  upon  the  stock  of  courtesies  and  liberality. 
So  free  in  all  acts  of  favour,  that  she  would  not  stay  to  hear 
herself  thanked.  .  .  .  She  was  an  excellent  friend,  and  hugely 
dear  to  very  many,  especially  to  the  best  and  most  discerning 
persons  ;  to  all  that  conversed  with  her,  and  could  understand 
her  great  worth  and  sweetness.  She  was  of  an  honourable, 
nice  and  tender  reputation  ;  and  of  the  pleasures  of  the  world, 
which  were  laid  before  her  in  heaps,  she  took  a  very  small 
and  inconsiderable  share." 

This  passage  is  quoted  from  the  Funeral  Sermon 
which  Taylor  preached  at  her  grave,  and  immediately 
published  in  quarto.  This  address  was  a  model  of  its 
kind,  and  was  widely  circulated,  finding  admirers 
among  the  large  public  of  those  to  whom  Lady 


78  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Carbery  was  an  object  of  no  interest,  but  who  accepted 
the  sermon  as  a  piece  of  mortuary  art,  like  the  elaborate 
verse-elegies  for  which  several  poets  of  a  slightly  earlier 
age,  but  particularly  Francis  Quarles,  had  been  famous. 
The  Funeral  Sermon  at  tJie  Obsequies  of  the  Countess  of 
Carbery  marks,  however,  an  advance  upon  the  con- 
ventional type  of  elegy  in  prose  and  verse,  in  that  it 
offers  no  preposterous  panegyric  of  the  deceased,  but 
a  reasonable  and  thoughtful  enumeration  of  her 
qualities.  It  took  the  form  of  a  biography,  and  we 
may  note  that  it  is  the  pattern  upon  which  Rust  was 
closely  to  model  his  own  invaluable  tribute  to  its 
author. 

Taylor  speaks  with  approbation  of  those  "women 
of  noble  birth  and  great  fortunes"  who  "nurse  their  chil- 
dren, look  to  the  affairs  of  the  house,  visit  poor  cottages, 
and  relieve  their  necessities,  are  courteous  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, learn  in  silence  of  their  husbands  or  their 
spiritual  guides,  read  good  books,  pray  often  and  speak 
little,"  and  devote  themselves  "to  good  housewifery 
and  charitable  provisions  for  their  family  and  neigh- 
bourhood." This  was  obviously  a  picture  of  the  useful 
and  active  life  of  the  only  "  woman  of  noble  birth  and 
great  fortunes"  whom  his  seclusion  at  Golden  Grove 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  observing.  Nor  does  it 
appear  that,  with  these  agreeable  duties,  Lady  Carbery 
combined  the  temper  of  a  fanatic ;  she  held  it  lawful 
to  relax  and  unbend  the  bow,  like  "St.  John,  who 
recreated  himself  with  sporting  with  a  tame  partridge," 
if  we  may  believe  Cassianus.  On  the  whole,  we  have 
a  charming  impression  presented  to  us  of  the  great  lady, 
whose  mind  and  soul  were  so  closely  watched  for  some 
five  quiet  years  by  her  delicately  appreciative  chaplain. 


in.]     RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE      79 

When  Lady  Carbery  died,  Taylor  was  already  en- 
gaged in  a  literary  work  of  great  importance,  on  which 
the  character  and  enthusiasm  of  that  admirable  woman 
had  put  their  stamp.  We  have  noticed  already,  and 
shall  have  again  to  observe,  a  curious  docility  in  the 
intellectual  disposition  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  the  result, 
perhaps,  of  a  certain  timidity,  which  usually  demanded 
a  stimulus  from  without  to  start  him  on  an  enterprise. 
We  have  already  seen  how  much  he  owed  to  the 
initiation  first  of  Laud  and  then  of  Lord  Northampton ; 
at  Golden  Grove  it  was  evidently  Lady  Carbery  who 
was  his  muse  and  his  directing  genius.  Among  other 
designs  of  her  suggesting  was  that  of  a  collection  of 
his  sermons,  so  arranged  as  to  serve  as  a  manual  of 
piety  for  a  whole  year.  This  was  a  matter  in  which 
Taylor  was  slow  to  act ;  he  was  not  sure  that  such  a 
publication  would  be  prudent  or  acceptable.  But 
"  the  appetites  of  the  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness" of  that  "dear  lady,  that  rare  soul,"  would  brook 
no  objections,  and  when  she  died,  it  was  being  prepared 
for  the  press. 

Taylor  immediately  issued  an  instalment,  in  the  form 
of  Twenty-eight  Sermons  preached  at  Golden  Grove,  in  1651. 
This  is  the  second,  or  "Summer"  half  of  the  entire 
work,  the  first  part  of  which,  the  "  Winter "  section, 
appeared  in  1653;  the  two  were  united  in  all  sub- 
sequent reprints,  under  the  title  of  Eniautos.1  This 
is  the  main  storehouse  or  miscellany  of  Taylor's 
homilies.  As  we  hold  it,  at  present,  however,  the 
two  parts  are  reversed  from  the  original  order  of 
publication,  and  the  history  of  the  book  thus  obscured. 
Although  Advent  Sunday,  of  course,  begins  the  eccle- 
1  That  is  to  say,  '  A  Year '  (evtauris). 


80  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

siastical  year,  in  dealing  with  the  Eniautos  we  ought 
to  turn  to  the  sermon  for  Whitsunday,  and  to  consider 
that  the  collection  begins  there.  It  is  important,  too, 
to  read  first  the  dedication  to  the  "  Summer  "  half,  and 
to  bear  in  mind  that  it  refers  to  events  which  were 
more  than  two  years  earlier  than  those  dealt  with  in 
what  is  now  the  opening  address.  If  we  do  this,  we 
see  that  in  1651  Jeremy  Taylor  published  his  Twenty- 
eight  Sermons,  as  a  legacy  due  to  Lord  Carbery  from  his 
countess,  but  reluctantly,  timidly,  almost  despairingly. 
He  expected  no  praise  for  them ;  he  feared  that  their 
publication  could  little  serve  his  reputation.  By  often 
reading  over  and  revising  these  essays,  the  pleasure 
which  he  took  in  their  composition  had  all  evaporated. 
He  had  "begun  to  grow  weary  and  displeased "  with 
his  own  oratory,  and  he  was  very  doubtful  whether  it 
would  either  please  or  edify  others. 

Part  of  this  was  due  to  physical  depression  of  spirits, 
no  doubt;  part  of  it  to  the  excessive  disappointment 
caused  by  the  sudden  removal  of  her  for  whom  he  had 
prepared  the  work,  and  to  whom  he  had  looked  for- 
ward as  its  earliest  and  most  ardent  reader.  But  it 
was  an  attitude  too  complex  and  too  unusual  to  be 
easily  explained.  This  was  far  from  being  the  cus- 
tomary pose  of  the  seventeenth-century  divine,  whether 
he  was  Presbyterian  or  Jansenist,  English  or  French. 
As  a  rule  no  shadow  of  a  suspicion  that  his  publication 
could  be  unwelcome  to  the  pious  agitated  the  Boanerges 
of  the  moment.  Not  to  welcome  his  sermons  was  to 
show  how  gravely  you  were  in  need  of  them.  But 
Jeremy  Taylor  was  not  like  the  clamorous  Rutherfords 
on  the  one  hand ;  nor  on  the  other  was  he  like  such 
fashionable  preachers  as  Massillon,  who,  in  telling  Mlle 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  81 

de  Scude'ry  about  the  sermons  he  was  preparing  for  the 
press,  assured  her  that  when  she  read  them  she  would 
fancy  herself  listening  to  St.  Augustine  or  to  St.  Bernard. 
It  is  curious  that  a  collection  of  addresses  more  magni- 
ficent than  any  which  a  theologian  of  the  English 
Church  had  hitherto  addressed  to  the  world  should 
appear  with  the  painful  and  faltering  dedication  of  the 
Twenty-Eight  Sermons  of  1651. 

But  there  were  reasons  for  Taylor's  reluctance.  He 
was  afraid  of  the  results  of  withdrawing  the  personal 
element.  These  addresses  had  been  written  for  and 
delivered  in  the  presence  of  a  very  small  cluster  of 
peculiarly  refined  and  highly-cultivated  persons,  who 
had  a  strong  admiration  for  the  preacher.  Jeremy 
Taylor  had  been  flattered  for  his  delivery,  for  his 
address,  doubtless  for  his  golden  voice  and  his  angelic 
aspect,  since  compliments  were  not  stinted  in  those 
days.  He  had  been  praised  "as  you  should  crown  a 
conqueror  with  a  garland  of  roses,  or  a  bride  with 
laurel."  He  had,  by  all  testimony,  what  Bossuet 
defines  as  "une  eloquence  vive  et  impetueuse  qui 
entralnait"  those  who  listened,  and  entranced  them. 
And  he  was  carried  on  himself,  and  felt  the  Delphic 
fumes  in  his  brain.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  make 
great  music  "  unto  a  little  clan,"  and  another  to 
address,  in  cold  print,  the  world  at  large.  Taylor,  in 
his  delicate  hermitage,  shrank  from  the  idea  of  a 
publicity  which  might  wound  him. 

His  orthodoxy,  too,  might  be  called  in  question, 
and,  a  little  later  on,  it  was.  He  would  not  care  much 
for  what  the  Parliamentarian  divines  would  say,  but 
the  criticism  of  men  like  Duppa  and  Sheldon,  his  own 
friends  and  fellow-sufferers,  made  him  anxious.  There 

F 


82  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

was,  for  instance,  his  disbelief  in  the  efficacy  of 
death-bed  repentance,  which  was  becoming  a  sort  of 
fanaticism  with  him.  There  were  other  matters,  some 
of  which  will  come  before  us  in  the  course  of  this 
inquiry,  although  the  nature  of  it  is  literary  and  not 
theological,  in  which  Taylor  held  and  was  obliged  con- 
scientiously to  advance  views  not  shared  by  the  rest 
of  the  High  Church  clergy  of  his  time.  He  would 
naturally  be  nervous  lest  these  should  lead  to  con- 
troversy, for  which,  at  the  moment,  his  mood  parti- 
cularly disinclined  him. 

A  profound  respect  for  the  limitations  and  apparatus 
of  religious  oratory  is  strongly  marked  in  these 
sermons.  Jeremy  Taylor  was  distinguished  from 
those  English  preachers  who  had  most  prominently 
preceded  him  in  that  he  was  in  no  sense  an  impro- 
visatore.  His  best  sermons — those  which  we  possess 
in  the  completed  Eniautos — are  composed  with  extreme 
care ;  on  every  page  they  bear  evidence  of  the  long 
delays  of  art.  His  own  injunctions  to  those  who 
preach  dwell  on  the  need  of  competency,  of  labour, 
of  deliberation.  It  is  important  to  observe  that  he 
arrived  at  the  full  stature  of  his  genius  at  a  moment 
when  the  English  Church  had  no  need  of  a  Tertullian. 
In  1651  no  obligation  lay  upon  one  of  the  hunted 
ministers  of  a  fallen  Episcopacy  to  strike  at  such 
vices  as  ambition,  or  gallantry,  or  the  greed  of  gold. 
What  was  wanted,  in  that  melancholy  hour,  was  a 
physician  of  souls,  one  who  had  the  skill  to  comfort 
the  racked  nerves  and  pour  oil  into  the  aching  wounds 
of  the  Church.  This  precisely  suited  the  temperament 
of  Jeremy  Taylor,  who  was  nothing  of  a  pontiff  and 
nothing  of  a  satirist,  but  whose  seraphic  gentleness 


in.]     RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE      83 

exhaled  itself  in  the  deep  and  comfortable  balms  of 
consolation. 

Accordingly,  in  the  Sermons  of  Taylor  we  find  a 
studied  avoidance  of  the  fury  of  the  preachers  of  an 
earlier  time.  All  is  in  the  spirit  of  St.  Chrysostom; 
these  are  aurea  dicta.  His  acquaintance  with  the  human 
heart  inspired  homilies  which  were  addressed,  not  to 
indifferent  or  hostile  listeners,  but  to  those  who  were 
greedy  of  pious  counsel.  He  advances  to  his  task  with 
tact,  with  insinuation,  with  an  energetic  imagery  which 
will  fetter  a  refined  fancy  and  uplift  it.  In  those  days 
the  sermon  was  beginning  to  be  a  literary  instrument, 
and  Taylor  bends  his  genius  to  use  it  so  as  to  correct 
bad  taste  as  well  as  bad  morals.  His  Sermons  give  a 
curious  impression  of  cosmopolitan  distinction.  He 
constantly  introduces  a  phrase, — such  as  "  we  walk  by 
the  obelisk,  and  meditate  in  piazzas,  that  they  that 
meet  us  may  talk  of  us," — which  seems  in  a  moment 
to  lift  us  completely  out  of  the  provincial  environment 
of  the  ordinary  Anglican  divine  of  the  period.  And 
Taylor  does  this  without  falling,  on  the  other  hand, 
into  the  affectation  of  the  "pretty  sermon,"  into  that 
rainbow-coloured  Marinism  which  was  all  the  mode 
in  London,  and  of  which  Anthony  a  Wood  has  pre- 
served ridiculous  examples.  Taylor's  appeal  to  the 
conscience  is  always  direct,  and  he  throws  his  art,  the 
unequalled  beauty  of  his  style,  into  the  presentment 
of  dogma,  with  a  passion  of  strenuous  piety. 

So,  for  instance,  when  we  read,  in  "  The  Faith  and 
Patience  of  the  Saints  "  : — 

"  Jesus  was  like  the  rainbow,  which  God  set  in  the  clouds 
as  a  sacrament  to  confirm  a  promise  and  establish  a  grace. 
He  was  half  made  of  the  glories  of  the  light,  and  half  of  the 


84  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP, 

moisture  of  a  cloud.  In  His  best  days,  He  was  but  half 
triumph  and  half  sorrow  " — 

the  incomparable  melody  and  delicacy  of  the  phrase 
must  no  more  be  condemned  as  the  screen  of  a  conceit 
than  must  one  of  Shakespeare's  unusual  and  pene- 
trating turns.  It  is  beautiful,  but  it  is  true  as  well ; 
it  bears  thinking  about;  it  illuminates,  it  does  not 
astonish  and  obscure  the  idea  by  the  glare  of  false 
ornament. 

The  splendour  of  these  Tiveniy-Eight  Sermons  is  very 
striking.  In  no  work  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  are  there 
to  be  found  so  many  images  taken  from  light  and 
colour  and  living  creatures  on  the  wing.  He  exercises 
every  legitimate  art  of  finished  literary  oratory,  from 
the  abrupt  beginning,  "And  lose  his  own  soul?"  or 
"This  is  the  epicure's  proverb!"  to  the  solemn  and 
stately  close.  The  curious  reader  will  find  that  he  almost 
invariably  ends  in  a  studied  verbal  harmony.  Between 
these  two  extremes  there  is  an  infinite,  but  carefully 
balanced,  variety  of  treatment.  He  is  always  endea- 
vouring to  appeal  to  his  auditors'  common  sense,  to 
touch  them  by  images  from  nature,  by  analogies  from 
contemporary  life.  He  is  always  careful  to  give  a 
tangible  form,  if  possible,  to  his  abstract  ideas,  by 
a  metaphor,  or  an  illustration.  Each  of  these  sermons 
occupied  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  in  tranquil 
delivery,  some  a  little  less,  none  more  than  an  hour. 
And  this  may  lead  us  to  a  consideration  of  a  point 
which  has  been  frequently  raised,  For  whom  were 
these  elaborate  works  of  art  intended  1 

It  has  been  suggested  that  discourses  as  finished  in 
form  as  those  which  Bossuet  was,  a  decade  later,  to 
pronounce  before  the  Court  of  Louis  xiv.  could  not 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  85 

have  been  composed  for  a  circle  of  acquaintances  in  a 
Welsh  country-house.  Heber  himself  acceded  to  this, 
and  being  confronted  with  the  plain  statement  that 
Taylor's  Eniautos  was  "preached  at  Golden  Grove," 
started  the  theory,  which  has  been  generally  accepted, 
that  in  preparing  his  sermons  for  the  press  he  materi- 
ally changed  them  from  "what  he  had  delivered  to 
his  rustic  auditory  in  Wales,"  and  that,  as  so  delivered, 
the  ornamental  and  philosophical  portions  were  omitted. 
This  I  am  by  no  means  prepared  to  believe.  First, 
because  the  sermons,  as  they  were  printed,  were  not 
longer,  but  decidedly  shorter,  than  was  the  custom 
with  such  compositions,  and  secondly,  because  the 
"ornament"  and  "philosophy"  are  not  of  a  nature 
which  could  be  detached,  but  make  a  part  of  the 
integral  texture.  Moreover,  no  Welsh-speaking  "  rustic 
auditory "  would  be  present  in  the  private  chapel  of 
Golden  Grove,  but  primarily  the  lord  and  lady  of  the 
place,  with  their  pronounced  appetite  for  the  refine- 
ments of  theological  literature,  and  secondarily  the 
other  clergy  from  Newton  Hall,  and  such  neighbouring 
gentry  as,  in  their  religious  isolation,  would  drive 
over  in  their  equipages  from  distant  parts  of  the 
country  to  be  thus  refreshed  and  delighted. 

To  a  discreet  and  enthusiastic  auditory  of  this  kind, 
the  Eniautos  would  not  sound  too  academical.  It  might 
even  seem  too  popular.  The  recondite  nature  of  the 
allusions  would  not  appear  excessive  to  persons  accus- 
tomed to  hear  long  passages  of  Greek  and  Latin  recited 
from  the  fathers.  Heber  himself  has  noted  that  of 
Pococke,  although  one  of  the  first  scholars  of  the  day, 
it  was  slightingly  complained  in  his  parish  that, 
"though  a  kind  and  neighbourly  man,  he  was  no 


86  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Latinist,"  simply  because  he  preached  in  homely  Eng- 
lish. Jeremy  Taylor  seems,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
to  express  a  certain  apprehension  of  a  similar  blame. 
In  his  case,  it  might  arise,  however,  not  so  much  from 
his  neglect  of  the  patristic  authorities  as  from  his  extra- 
ordinary fondness  for  dissolving  little  crystals  of  such 
very  profane  writers  as  Martial,  Catullus,  and  Petronius 
in  his  holy  discourse.  Of  this  no  more  curious  example 
can  be  pointed  to  than  the  way  in  which  he  has  (in 
"  The  Spirit  of  Grace ")  built  up  a  most  brilliant 
summary  of  the  mysteries  of  our  faith  on  a  basis  so 
little  to  be  anticipated  as  a  tag  from  an  ode  of  Anacreon. 
If  the  shock  of  Lady  Carbery's  death,  striking 
"  more  suddenly  than  upon  the  poor  slave  that  made 
sport  upon  the  theatre,"  deeply  affected  Taylor's 
spirits,  they  were  still  further  depressed  by  a  blow 
which  came  even  closer  to  him.  Absolutely  no  light 
has  hitherto  been  thrown  on  the  movements  of  the 
wife  whom  he  had  married  at  Uppingham  early  in 
1639,  but  she  had  probably  joined  her  husband  at 
Llanfihangel  in  1645.  Their  eldest  child,  William, 
had  died  at  Uppingham  in  1642  ;  five  others  had  come 
in  rapid  succession.  The  allusions  to  Mrs.  Taylor, 
which  can  without  overbold  conjecture  be  traced  in 
writings  of  her  husband,  are  few.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  she  is  the  "affectionate  wife"  whom 
Taylor  tenderly  recalls,  who, 

"when  she  hath  been  in  fear  of  parting  with  her  beloved 
husband,  heartily  desired  of  God  his  life  or  society  upon  any 
conditions  that  were  not  sinful,  and  chose  to  beg  with  him 
rather  than  to  feast  without  him  ;  and  the  same  person  hath 
upon  that  consideration  borne  poverty  nobly,  when  God  hath 
heard  her  prayer  in  the  other  matter." 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  87 

It  may  be  that  Mrs.  Taylor's  health  suffered  a  slow 
decline,  for  references  to  the  burden  of  illness  in  a 
house,  and  its  attendant  fatigues  and  anxieties,  are 
frequent  in  her  husband's  writings  at  this  period.  In 
a  passage  where  the  inconveniences  of  their  poverty 
are  plainly  referred  to,  he  adds,  "sickness  doth  so 
often  embitter  the  content  of  a  family."  It  seems 
probable  that  the  parents  were  not  entirely  of  one 
mind  about  the  education  of  children.  In  the  Holy 
Dying  he  speaks  with  strange  severity  of  the  bad 
influence  of  mothers  on  their  children : — 

"  These  soften  them  with  kisses  and  imperfect  noises,  -with 
the  pap  and  breast-milk  of  soft  endearments.  They  rescue 
them  from  tutors,  and  snatch  them  from  discipline ;  they 
desire  to  keep  them  fat  and  warm,  and  their  feet  dry  and 
their  bellies  full ;  and  then  the  children  govern,  and  cry,  and 
prove  fools  and  troublesome,  so  long  as  the  feminine  republic 
does  endure." 

The  modern  reader  will  be  all  with  Mrs.  Taylor  in 
this  matter,  and  will  surmise  that  if  "the  bold  and 
valiant "  divine  had  taken  more  pains  to  see  that  his 
little  children's  feet  were  dry,  the  dreadful  mortality 
that  presently  pursued  them  might  have  been  averted. 
But  Jeremy  Taylor  is  himself  too  human  to  be  quite 
consistent,  and  in  other  places  commends  the  physical 
care  of  little  children. 

News  of  the  death  of  Phoebe  Taylor  is  preserved 
for  us  in  a  curious  way,  in  a  piece  of  a  letter  which 
has  been  torn  across.  It  was  written,  on  the  1st  of 
April  1651,  to  Sir  William  Dugdale,  the  antiquary; 
what  remains  of  it  is  of  deep  interest.  Among  other 
things,  Taylor  says,  "I  have  but  lately  buried  my 
dear  wife."  He  also  mentions,  "I  have  some  things 


88  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

now  in  [  ]  preparing,  The  Rule  of  Holy  Dying ; 

I   have   [  ]ow  transcribing  it."      The  book,  of 

which  the  first  draft  is  here  mentioned,  was  completed 
and  sent  to  the  press  in  October  of  the  same  year,  the 
dedication  being  signed  on  the  anniversary  of  Lady 
Carbery's  death.  It  was  adorned  with  a  folding  plate 
by  Peter  Lombart,  representing  the  hall  of  a  country 
house,  where  a  clergyman  displays  the  life-sized  picture 
of  a  skeleton  to  a  handsome  lady,  with  her  husband 
and  child.  This  group  is  supposed  to  contain  portraits 
of  Taylor  himself  and  of  the  Carberys.  In  the  dedica- 
tion addressed  to  the  Earl,  Taylor  speaks  with  dignity 
of  their  common  bereavement;  "both  your  lordship 
and  myself  have  lately  seen  and  felt  such  sorrows  of 
death,  and  such  sad  departure  of  dearest  friends,  that 
it  is  more  than  high  time  we  should  think  ourselves 
nearly  concerned."  Death  had  come  so  near  them 
both  as  to  fetch  away  a  portion  from  their  very  hearts, 
and  a  community  of  grief  drew  the  survivors  together 
in  a  solemn  and  pious  bond. 

The  praise,  which  it  was  not  possible  to  give  to 
the  Holy  Living  without  reserve,  will  be  withheld  by 
no  competent  critic  from  The  Rules  and  Exercises  of 
Holy  Dying.  The  resemblance  between  these  two 
treatises,  which  are  often  confounded,  is  a  purely 
superficial  one.  Considered  as  literature,  the  superiority 
of  the  latter  over  the  former  is  immense;  since  that 
genius  which  is  only  fitfully  and  feebly  apparent  in 
the  Holy  Living,  illuminates  the  Holy  Dying  in  a 
limpid  and  continuous  glory.  Between  the  two 
volumes  there  is  all  the  difference  which  there  must 
be  between  a  piece  of  task-work,  honestly  and  com- 
petently performed,  and  a  product  of  vehement  inspira- 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  89 

tion.  Jeremy  Taylor  had  formed  no  project  of  a 
continuation  of  the  Holy  Living.  On  the  contrary, 
that  work  had  included  meditations  and  prayers  to 
be  used  at  the  approach  of  death.  But  now  Taylor 
had  himself  passed  through  the  crisis  of  watching  the 
demise  of  a  beloved  and  sentient  being ;  he  had  passed 
through  this  crisis  twice  in  a  few  months.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  conventional  piety,  of  what  all 
Christians  felt  or  should  feel  at  this  extraordinary 
juncture;  it  was  an  observation  of  what  his  own 
heart  had  throbbed  with  in  agony  and  terror  and 
incurable  regret.  In  the  coldness  of  his  own  hearth- 
stone, in  the  like  coldness  at  Golden  Grove,  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  one  of  the  most  beautiful  prose 
compositions  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  threnody 
palpitating  with  enthusiasm  and  emotion. 

Jeremy  Taylor  claimed  that  the  Holy  Dying  was 
the  earliest  work  of  its  kind  "that  I  remember  to 
have  been  published  in  the  Church  of  England."  He 
admits  that  there  had  been  many  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  but  he  holds  the  resemblance  of  his  treatise 
with  these  to  be  quite  superficial.  He  claims  an 
originality;  "in  this  affair  I  was  forced  almost  to 
walk  alone";  the  only  help  he  has  had  having  come 
from  the  fountains  of  Scripture  and  from  "some 
experience  in  the  cure  of  souls."  This,  then,  is  the 
first  point  which  it  may  be  useful  to  consider  in 
dealing  with  the  causes  of  the  vitality  of  the  Holy 
Dying  as  a  work  of  art.  Its  brilliant  freshness  is 
owing,  in  the  outset,  to  the  fact  that  the  author  is 
not,  like  so  many  theologians  of  his  time,  chewing 
the  cud  of  the  old  accepted  platitudes  and  holy  saws, 
but  is  feeding  the  arteries  of  his  imagination  with 


90  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

a  constant  flow  of  recent  personal  observation.  These 
are  clinical  notes,  sharply  perceived  in  protracted 
hours  of  acute  mental  activity ;  and  they  are  used  to 
produce  a  sort  of  pathology  of  the  soul  in  physical 
pain.  He  has  evidently  been  deeply  impressed  by  the 
experiences  of  these  dear  persons  in  their  hour  of  agony, 
by  their  "unequal  courages  and  accidental  fortitude." 
Being  brought  face  to  face,  in  this  way,  with  all  the 
violence  of  death,  he  is  at  once  fascinated  and  exalted 
by  it.  He  fears  a  kind  of  hysterical  reaction  from 
what  he  has  endured  and  seen,  and  he  determines  to 
use  his  emotion  for  a  purpose  at  once  creative  and 
sedative,  because  "nothing  is  more  unreasonable  than 
to  entangle  our  spirits  in  wildness  and  amazement, 
like  a  partridge  in  a  net,  which  she  breaks  not,  though 
she  breaks  her  wings." 

Few  points  are  more  interesting  than  the  modern- 
ness  of  Taylor's  attitude  to  many  themes  which  were 
still  in  his  time  subjected  to  the  traditions  of  the 
Renaissance.  The  conception  of  death  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  poetry,  the  sermons,  and  the  philosophy 
of  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  a 
survival  of  the  "  Danses  Macabres  "  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth.  Death  was  still  generally  regarded  anthropo- 
morphically  and  positively,  as  a  great  pale  tyrant,  an 
executioner,  a  headsman  concealed  behind  a  curtain. 
He  was  "  the  unsparing  pursuivant  with  eagles'  wings  " ; 
he  was  even  the  grisly,  cynical  humorist,  waiting  to 
pounce  on  the  king  as  he  ascends  his  throne,  or  to 
strike  down  the  beggar  as  he  reels  out  of  the  tavern. 
In  literature,  this  sentiment  of  death  as  the  skeleton 
that  hides  to  take  his  victim  unawares,  because,  if  met 
in  front,  he  might  be  parleyed  with  and  even  tricked, 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  91 

had  produced  some  magnificent  apologies  and  out- 
bursts. It  had  lent  a  wing  to  the  heavy,  historic  muse 
of  Ralegh ;  it  had  spread  its  velvet  over  the  sermons 
of  Donne;  it  had  inspired  a  choir  of  doleful  lyrists. 
But  it  was  cast  out  of  court,  and  relegated  to  a  place 
among  things  childish  and  outworn,  by  the  Holy  Dying 
of  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  never  again  could  this  con- 
ception of  death,  as  a  gymnastic  skeleton  with  a  dart 
springing  from  the  tomb,  be  put  forward  without 
danger  of  awakening  a  smile  of  disgust. 

To  the  elegists  of  a  decayed  Renaissance,  death 
had  seemed  a  sort  of  central  actor  in  a  tragedy.  To 
Taylor,  as  to  a  physician  of  to-day,  it  is  not  a  figure 
at  all,  but  a  negation ;  a  state  in  which  the  powers  of 
movement  and  assimilation  have  ceased  their  activity,  a 
point  where  the  equilibrium  in  which  life  has  consisted 
has  broken  down,  and  where  what  is  left  is  nothing. 
Taylor's  originality  consists  in  the  firmness  with  which 
he  turns  away  from  the  conception  of  a  grinning  shape 
behind  the  arras,  ready  to  strike,  and  concentrates  his 
attention  on  the  psychology  of  the  still  living,  but 
rapidly  declining  and  obscured  humanity.  Accordingly 
he  does  not,  in  the  manner  of  his  predecessors,  expatiate 
on  the  majesty  of  death,  or  cultivate  the  pretension 
and  splendour  of  high  family  funerals.  In  particular, 
he  has  little  or  nothing  to  say  about  the  subject  which 
had  so  deeply  stirred  the  imagination  of  the  previous 
age,  the  conduct  of  obsequies.  That  does  not  in- 
terest him  in  the  least.  There  is  no  dwelling  upon 
the  deaths  of  great  persons,  a  matter  in  which  the 
early  seventeenth  century  had  been  so  disagreeably 
insistent.  Jeremy  Taylor  finds  the  death  of  "a  poor 
shepherd  or  a  maid-servant"  quite  as  interesting  as 


92  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

that  of  a  prince  or  a  countess.  And  in  an  age  so 
copious  and  tumultuous  in  its  funerals,  he  is  severe 
in  denouncing  anything  like  ambitious  or  pompous 
sorrow,  and  in  deprecating  all  ostentatious  lamentation 
for  the  dead. 

Another  very  interesting  example  of  the  modernity 
of  Taylor's  mind,  and  his  freedom  from  the  trammels 
of  his  time,  is  to  be  observed  in  the  curious  notes  on 
the  approach  and  development  of  illness,  and  on  the 
behaviour  of  those  who  surround  the  sick,  in  the 
later  part  of  the  Holy  Dying.  He  seems  to  have 
divined,  by  sheer  exercise  of  the  imagination,  some 
of  the  great  truths  of  modern  medicine,  so  far  at  least 
as  to  reject,  or  question,  that  universal  idea  of  disease 
as  the  work  of  a  malignant  spirit  outside  the  body,  of 
which  Sir  Frederick  Treves  has  lately  spoken  in  his 
interesting  strictures  on  a  great  physician  younger 
than  Taylor,  Sir  Thomas  Browne  of  Norwich.  Jeremy 
Taylor,  in  his  closely  observed  notes  on  the  psychology 
of  persons  attacked  by  sickness,  seems  to  rise  above 
the  preternatural  view,  and  to  accept,  with  clairvoy- 
ance, the  simple  natural  theory  of  the  processes  of 
dissolution.  He  even  seems  to  have  foreseen  some- 
thing of  that  very  theory  of  the  beneficence  of  some 
of  the  symptoms  of  disease  which  is  claimed  as  a 
discovery  almost  of  our  own  day.  He  points  out  the 
benefit  of  some  illnesses  in  giving  the  nerves  an 
opportunity  of  rest;  sickness  becoming  "the  more 
tolerable  because  it  cures  very  many  evils,  and  takes 
away  the  sense  of  all  the  cross  fortunes  which  amaze 
the  spirits  of  some  men,  and  transport  them  beyond 
the  limits  of  all  patience."  And  he  actually  perceives 
that  some  acute  forms  of  illness  may  be,  as  our  great 


in.]     RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE      93 

modern  surgeon  puts  it,  "the  outcome  of  nature's 
vigorous  effort  to  minimise  the  calamity,"  and  force 
the  patient  to  a  recumbent  posture,  where,  says  the 
divine,  "all  losses  and  disgraces,  domestic  cares  and 
public  evils,  ...  lie  down  and  rest  upon  the  sick 
man's  pillow." 

In  the  more  enthusiastic  parts  of  the  Holy  Dying,  the 
sustained  brightness  and  abundance  of  the  style  are 
extraordinary.  The  images  bud  and  branch  under  our 
eyes  in  a  miraculous  profusion.  To  this  work  Jeremy 
Taylor  brought  a  mind  steeped  in  the  loftiest  poetry 
of  antiquity ;  nowhere  are  the  references  so  frequent 
as  they  are  here  to  Lucretius,  Horace,  and  Lucan, 
to  Persius,  Ovid,  and  Petronius  Arbiter.  Almost  the 
only  modern  books  which  he  quotes  are  the  then  very 
popular  Odes  of  the  Polish  poet,  Casimir,  who  had  lately 
died,  and  the  Funeral  Monuments  of  John  Weever,  the 
antiquary.  But  although  the  ancients  colour  so  much 
of  the  tissue  of  his  style,  he  has  now  almost  entirely 
abandoned  the  vexatious  habit  of  quoting  them  in  bulk. 
He  has  learned  at  last  the  very  useful  lesson  which 
English  prose  had  been  so  slow  to  learn,  but  which 
Joachim  du  Bellay  had  successfully  taught  the  French 
authors  a  hundred  years  before — namely,  that  good 
masons  do  not  build  their  new  buildings  partly  of  fresh 
brick,  and  partly  of  stones  torn  out  of  stately  ancient 
houses,  but  leave  what  other  men  have  built,  and  try 
to  construct  as  beautifully  as  they  did,  in  reverent 
imitation,  but  with  a  different  material.  An  example, 
taken  at  random  from  the  Holy  Dying,  may  serve  to 
exemplify  Taylor's  method.  Here  a  tag  from  the 
Hippolytus  of  the  pseudo-Seneca  serves  as  the  grain 
of  sand  around  which  the  nacreous  ingenuity  of 


94  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  English  writer  secretes   its   layers   of  mother-of- 
pearl  : — 

"  Since  we  stay  not  here,  being  people  but  of  a  day's  abode, 
and  our  age  is  like  that  of  a  fly  and  contemporary  with  a 
gourd,  we  must  look  somewhere  else  for  an  abiding  city,  a 
place  in  another  country  to  fix  our  house  in,  whose  walls  and 
foundation  is  God,  where  we  must  find  rest,  or  else  be  restless 
for  ever.  For  whatever  ease  we  can  have  or  fancy  here  is 
shortly  to  be  changed  into  sadness  or  tediousness.  It  goes 
away  too  soon,  like  the  periods  of  our  life  ;  or  stays  too  long, 
like  the  sorrows  of  a  sinner.  Its  own  weariness,  or  a  contrary 
disturbance,  is  its  load,  or  it  is  eased  by  its  revolution  into 
vanity  and  forgetfulness.  And  where  either  there  is  sorrow 
or  an  end  of  joy  there  can  be  no  true  felicity,  which  must  be 
had  by  some  instrument  and  in  some  period  of  our  duration. 
We  must  carry  up  our  affections  to  the  mansions  prepared  for 
us  above,  where  eternity  is  the  measure,  felicity  is  the  state, 
angels  are  the  company,  the  Lamb  is  the  light,  and  God  is  the 
portion  and  inheritance." 

Of  all  the  Avritings  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  the  Holy  Dying 
achieved  the  most  direct  and  durable  popularity. 
Twenty  authorised  editions  of  it  appeared  before  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  produced  an 
instant  effect  in  humanising  the  piety  of  English 
readers,  which  controversy  had  bitterly  exacerbated. 
Taylor's  attitude,  his  philosophy  of  action,  was  holy, 
but  it  was  neither  morose,  fanatical,  nor  uncharitable. 
It  was  inspired  by  a  gentle  sobriety,  a  brooding 
tenderness  and  pity.  On  some  points  it  displayed  an 
extraordinary  liberality,  and  in  its  melancholy  it  was 
marvellously  wholesome.  The  curious  morbidity  of 
the  age  found  no  support  in  Taylor's  healthy  sweetness. 
The  dying  are  to  be  led  to  examine  their  conscience, 
but  not  in  gloom  ;  the  scrutiny  is  not  to  be  distracted 
by  the  terrors  of  law  and  punishment.  All  this  was 


in.]     RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE      95 

eminently  serviceable  to  the  irritated  nerves  of  his 
contemporaries ;  it  was  a  balm  to  their  spiritual  wounds. 

We  may  hope  that  the  success  of  this  and  other  of 
his  literary  writings  was  of  practical  benefit  to  Taylor's 
fortunes,  which  were  at  a  low  ebb  in  1651.  In  that 
year  he  was  embarrassed  by  a  cessation  of  the  patron- 
age of  Lord  Hatton.  "  I  am  troubled,"  he  says,  "  that 
he  will  not  honour  me  with  a  letter."  He  was  doubt- 
less unaware  of  the  penury  into  which  Lord  Hatton 
had  now  sunk  in  Paris.  He  makes  a  very  strong 
appeal  to  Lord  Carbery's  generosity  in  the  dedication 
to  the  Holy  Living,  which  book  he  compares,  with  more 
quaintness  than  propriety,  to  the  gift  of  "apiece  of 
gum  or  the  fat  of  a  cheap  lamb."  In  the  same  work 
he  seems  to  describe  himself  as  "  a  little  bee  that  feeds 
on  dew  or  manna,  and  lives  upon  what  falls  every 
morning  from  the  storehouses  of  heaven,  clouds  and 
providence."  In  the  Holy  Dying  he  is  still  more 
explicit,  and  speaks  of  the  joy  with  which  he  ministers 
to  the  sick  and  penitent,  "having  scarce  any  other 
possibilities  left  me  of  doing  alms,  or  exercising  that 
charity  by  which  we  shall  all  be  judged  at  doomsday." 
His  salary  as  chaplain  at  Golden  Grove  must  have 
been  small,  and  perhaps  irregularly  paid. 

It  was  possibly  the  opportunity  to  sell  yet  another 
manuscript  to  a  London  bookseller  which  led  to  the  pub- 
lication, in  this  same  year,  of  a  folio  pamphlet  entitled 
Clerus  Domini.  This  is  one  of  the  rarest  and  most 
obscure  of  Taylor's  writings,  though  copies  of  it  are 
sometimes  found  bound  up  with  the  Eniautos.  It  was 
a  relic  of  his  old  Oxford  days,  and  had  been  written,  some 
eight  or  nine  years  previously,  at  the  special  command 
of  "our  late  king."  So  much  had  happened,  so  much 


96  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

had  been  overturned  and  ruined  in  the  English  Church 
since  its  composition,  that  it  must  have  seemed  obsolete 
to  readers  of  1651.  It  was  issued  without  dedication 
or  prefatory  matter  of  any  kind,  perhaps  surreptitiously. 
It  is  concerned  with  arguments  for  the  ministerial  order 
as  an  absolute  religious  necessity.  The  author  asserts 
that  the  strictness  and  severity  of  the  hierarchy  are 
pleasing  to  God,  and  have  descended  to  us  directly 
from  that  primal  Consecrator,  the  Holy  Ghost.  There 
must  be  experts  in  religion,  as  in  art  and  science,  men 
of  careful  training,  supernaturally  selected,  by  whose 
delicate  and  skilful  care  alone  piety  can  escape  being 
"  bruised  by  the  hard  hand  of  mechanics." 

The  treatise  is  very  outspoken,  and  must  have  been 
excessively  distasteful  to  the  Parliamentarian  divines, 
if  any  of  them  came  across  it.  It  treats  their  preten- 
sions with  the  utmost  contempt.  They  are  all  pre- 
sumptuous amateurs,  who  pretend  to  work  a  machine 
of  the  nature  of  which  they  are  profoundly  ignorant. 
Four  great  mysteries  are  defined  as  lying  within  the 
exclusive  province  of  the  consecrated  minister :  these 
are  remission  of  sins,  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel, 
baptism,  and  the  distribution  of  the  Sacrament.  The 
minister  is  lifted  above  common  humanity  by  his 
apostolical  prerogative.  He  is  ordained  that  he  may 
bridge  over  the  mysterious  and  wonderful  chasm 
between  God  and  man;  this  none  but  "a  settled 
ministry"  can  do.  The  self-chosen  presbyter  or 
preacher  has  no  apparatus  for  crossing  the  abyss,  and 
his  offers  of  ministration  are  as  absurd  as  they  are 
profane.  This  is  the  temper  of  Jeremy  Taylor  before 
his  afflictions  had  mellowed  him,  and  the  chief  interest 
of  Clerus  Domini  is  the  evidence  which  it  gives  us  of 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  97 

the  advance  of  every  species  of  liberality  which  he  had 
made  during  his  years  of  seclusion  in  Wales.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  its 
publication  in  1651,  but  that  Eoyston  acquired  it  from 
some  one  at  Oxford  in  whose  hands  it  had  remained 
ever  since  Taylor's  flight  in  1644. 

From  a  literary  point  of  view  Clerus  Domini  is 
almost  valueless,  except,  to  the  reader  who  approaches 
his  works  in  the  order  of  their  publication,  as  a 
startling  instance  of  the  development  of  Taylor's 
intellect  and  style  since  he  came  to  Golden  Grove. 
Here  we  have  the  tedious,  constant  quotation  from 
the  fathers  in  Latin  and  Greek,  the  equally  tedious, 
casuistical  building-up  of  a  structure  which  seems  like 
argument  and  is  not,  the  clumsy  sentences  without 
felicity  or  music.  Indeed,  it  would  hardly  be  worth 
while  to  mention  Clerus  Domini,  if  it  were  not  so 
useful  a  text  upon  which  to  discourse  on  the  wonder- 
ful advance  in  all  the  powers  of  its  author  which 
followed  his  flight  to  Wales.  The  contrast  may  be 
still  further  emphasised  by  comparison  of  it  with  two 
compositions  which  appeared  in  the  same  year  (1651), 
in  a  little  book  called  Choice  Forms  of  Prayer.  This 
was  the  venture  of  a  publisher  who  collected  from 
a  large  number  of  popular  divines  the  devotions  which 
they  were  in  the  habit  of  using  before  and  after 
preaching  a  sermon.  Jeremy  Taylor's  contributions, 
particularly  the  first,  are  models  of  purity  and  grace. 

For  the  next  three  years  what  we  know  of  Taylor  is 
almost  exclusively  confined  to  a  record  of  his  publica- 
tions. His  life  seems  to  have  become  more  and  more 
sequestered.  Eust  speaks  of  his  "solitude"  and  of 
his  "retirement"  at  this  time,  and  of  his  implicit 

G 


98  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

devotion  to  the  composition  of  "  those  excellent  dis- 
courses, which  are  enough  of  themselves  to  furnish  a 
library."  During  these  years  the  only  friend  of  whose 
presence  we  are  allowed  to  be  conscious  is  Lord 
Carbery,  who  seems  to  have  preserved  an  even  tenor 
of  protective  sympathy.  But  Taylor  was  now  in  cor- 
respondence with  theologians  in  various  parts  of  the 
kingdom.  In  a  letter  to  Gilbert  Sheldon,  his  old  friend, 
the  former  warden  of  All  Souls  College,  Oxford,  dated 
April  11,  1653,  he  speaks  of  obtaining  for  a  certain 
manuscript  treatise  of  his  as  much  criticism  from  the 
neighbouring  Welsh  clergy  as  he  could ;  and  of  a  con- 
ference he  has  lately  had  "  with  a  Jesuit  in  these  parts." 
The  work  which  he  mentions  thus  to  Sheldon  is  the 
Real  Presence,  of  1654,  and  he  states  that  he  has  sent 
a  copy  in  proof-sheets  to  Dr.  Brian  Duppa,  the  aged 
Bishop  of  Salisbury,  who  was  now  living  a  life  of  strict 
retirement  at  Richmond  in  Surrey ;  this  eminent  divine 
was  another  of  the  old  All  Souls  friends  of  happier 
times.  We  find  Taylor  thanking  Sheldon,  who  has 
done  him  the  very  welcome  favour  of  paying  him  what 
appear  to  be  some  partial  arrears  of  his  college  stipend 
— Taylor  "  resolving  to  take  up  the  remaining  portion 
of  the  debt  at  the  great  Audit " — and  sending  him  a 
new  edition  of  The  Great  Exemplar  and  his  new  volume 
of  Sermons. 

The  last-mentioned  book,  which  Taylor  refers  to  in 
this  letter  to  Sheldon  as  published  before  April  1653, 
is  perhaps,  from  a  purely  literary  point  of  view,  the 
most  important  which  he  ever  produced.  It  was  issued 
as  Twenty-Five  Sermons  preached  at  Golden  Grove,  being 
for  the  Winter  Half -Year,  and  completes  the  series  of 
which  the  first  instalment  appeared  in  1651.  Like  its 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  99 

predecessor,  it  mainly  consists  of  pairs  of  sermons, 
although  in  many  cases  there  are  groups  of  three,  and 
there  is  one  of  four ;  but  the  entire  Eniautos  does  not 
contain  a  single  address  which  is  complete  in  itself. 
It  follows,  therefore,  that  no  effort  is  made  to  provide 
appropriate  teaching  for  particular  feast  days,  and,  in 
fact,  with  the  exceptions  of  Whitsuntide  and  Advent, 
no  special  or  topical  allusiveness  is  attempted.  What 
has  been  already  said  in  general  about  the  sermons  of 
Jeremy  Taylor  is  true  of  this,  his  most  magnificent 
collection  of  them.  The  dedication,  once  more  to  Lord 
Carbery,  is  a  brilliant  essay  on  the  value  of  sermons. 
The  author  observes  that  "all  the  great  necessities  of 
the  Church  have  been  served  by  the  zeal  of  preaching 
in  public,"  which  "  restored  the  splendour  of  the  Church, 
when  barbarism  and  wars  and  ignorance,  either  sate  in, 
or  broke  the  doctor's  chair  in  pieces."  It  is  therefore 
peculiarly  proper  that  in  this  dreadful  age  of  heresy 
and  schism,  God's  ministers  should  proclaim  "those 
truths  which  are  the  enamel  and  beauty  of  our 
churches."  There  is  no  trace  in  this  dedication  of  the 
reluctance  and  regret  which  marked  that  of  1651.  In 
1653  Taylor  has  no  more  diffidence.  He  knows  now 
that  he  had  a  great  and  fruitful  work  to  perform  from 
the  pulpit.  This  is  an  interesting  psychological  point 
which  has  not  hitherto  been  observed  by  the  succes- 
sive editors  who  have  reversed  the  order  of  the  two 
sections  of  the  Eniauto§. 

Again,  in  the  body  of  the  sermons,  we  are  conscious, 
if  we  read  them  as  they  were  written,  of  an  important 
advance  in  the  genius  of  the  author.  The  Twenty-Five 
have  all  the  lucidity  and  harmony  of  the  Twenty-Eight, 
but  they  have  in  addition  a  certain  sublimity  of  tone 


100  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

which  is  unknown  to  the  works  which  Taylor  com- 
posed before  the  deaths  of  Lady  Carbery  and  of  his 
wife.  In  some  of  these  homilies  he  touches  the  very 
highest  level  of  human  oratory.  He  proposes  no  new 
theology,  he  discusses  no  spinosities  of  creed  ;  he  maps 
the  path  of  conduct,  and  enlightens  it  with  all  the 
colour  and  radiance  of  his  luminous  experience.  In 
each  sermon  there  comes  the  direct  appeal  to  the 
imagination  of  his  auditors.  The  skill  with  which 
he  presents  picture  after  picture  to  the  eyes  of  the 
listeners  is  wonderful.  Let  us  take,  for  example,  the 
first  sermon  on  "Christ's  Advent."  Here  we  are 
hurried  from  vivid  scene  to  scene ;  in  rapid  succession 
we  watch  the  passage  of  the  plague-cart  through  a 
doomed  city ;  we  have  a  Michelangelesque  present- 
ment of  the  terrors  of  the  Day  of  Judgment;  we 
watch  a  party  of  youths  and  girls  carousing  at  the 
wine-cup ;  we  listen  to  a  Greek  philosopher  addressing 
his  disciples  in  an  enclosure ;  we  have  the  pathetic 
drama  of  a  young  gentleman  breaking  from  his  ungodly 
mother,  with  her  repentance,  and  his  backsliding,  and 
her  ultimate  reproaches ;  we  are  the  spectators  at  a  sun- 
rise, and  then  at  an  earthquake  on  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  then  at  an  apocalyptic  scene  when 

"the  birds  shall  mourn  and  change  their  songs  to  threnes 
and  sad  accents.  Rivers  of  fires  shall  rise  from  the  east  and 
the  west,  and  the  stars  shall  be  rent  into  threads  of  light,  and 
scatter  like  the  beards  of  comets." 

Nor  does  all  this  exhaust  the  variety  of  the  preacher's 
images,  while  this  wealth  of  illustration  and  allusion 
never  interferes  for  a  moment  with  the  clear  flow  of 
the  orator's  solemn,  evangelical  argument. 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  101 

In  dealing  with  the  mysteries  of  religion,  it  is 
interesting  to  see  how  completely  Taylor  continues 
master  of  his  voice.  We  see  him  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy ; 
his  fancy,  with  outspread  wings,  soars  up  into  the 
empyrean,  yet  he  retains  it  wholly  under  his  control. 
Nowhere,  in  the  series  of  his  writings,  does  he  deal 
with  themes  in  which  the  enthusiastic  cry  of  the 
preacher  is  so  apt  to  break  in  a  kind  of  hysterical 
falsetto  as  he  does  in  the  Twenty-Five  Sermons.  Yet 
he  remains  always  master  of  his  art.  In  his  three 
great  addresses  on  "Doomsday-Book"  his  reticence 
is  extraordinary.  Here,  where  the  temptation  to 
expatiate  on  horror  is  so  great,  Taylor  is  careful  to 
dwell  more  on  the  recompenses  than  on  the  punish- 
ments. He  shrinks  from  all  those  material  catalogues 
of  terrific  experience  in  which  the  Mediaeval  theo- 
logians delighted.  He  is  loath  to  admit  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  torment,  but  leans  to  the  kindlier  hope 
that  the  wicked  soul  is  broken  up  and  destroyed, 
although  he  warns  all  those  who  still  lie  "in  the 
neighbourhood  and  fringes  of  the  flames  of  hell "  not 
to  trust  to  this. 

In  the  different  numbers  of  these  sermons  Jeremy 
Taylor  sounds  the  whole  diapason  of  majestic  elo- 
quence. Nor  does  he  neglect  the  craving  of  the  ear 
for  quieter  periods  and  a  more  broken  cadence.  The 
group  of  sermons  on  "The  Return  of  Prayers"  offers 
us  instances,  as  many  as  we  can  desire,  of  both  forms 
of  beauty.  Here  is  a  fragment  in  the  more  ornate 
manner : — 

"  Our  prayers  upbraid  our  spirits  when  we  beg  coldly  and 
tamely  for  those  things  for  which  we  ought  to  die,  which  are 
more  precious  than  the  globes  of  kings  and  weightier  than 


102  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

imperial  sceptres,  richer  than  the  spoils  of  the  sea,  or  the 
treasures  of  the  Indian  hills." 

And  here  is  a  passage  in  which  the  short,  nervous 
sentences  are  like  those  of  our  latest  masters  of 
colloquial  English : — 

"  Holy  prayer  procures  the  ministry  and  service  of  angels. 
It  rescinds  the  decrees  of  God.  It  cures  sicknesses  and  obtains 
pardon.  It  arrests  the  sun  in  its  course,  and  stays  the  wheels 
of  the  chariot  of  the  moon.  It  rules  over  all  God's  creatures, 
and  opens  and  shuts  the  storehouses  of  rain.  It  unlocks  the 
cabinet  of  the  womb,  and  quenches  the  violence  of  fire.  It 
stops  the  mouths  of  lions,  and  reconciles  our  sufferance  and 
•weak  faculties  with  the  violence  of  torment  and  sharpness  of 
persecution.  It  pleases  God  and  supplies  all  our  needs.  But 
prayer,  that  can  do  this  much  for  us,  can  do  nothing  at  all 
without  holiness,  for  God  heareth  not  sinners,  but  if  any  man 
be  a  worshipper  of  God,  and  doth  His  will,  him  He  heareth." 

There  was  no  one  else  in  England  in  1653,  there 
was  no  one  to  arise  for  a  long  time  after  that  date, 
who  could  write  sustained  prose  with  this  simplicity 
and  force  and  delicate  precision. 

From  this  volume,  in  which  the  variety  and  fulness 
of  Taylor's  imagination  are  seen  in  their  highest 
development,  it  is  difficult  to  part  ourselves.  The 
whole  Eniautos  might  take  as  its  motto  a  phrase  which 
occurs  in  one  of  its  most  beautiful  sections,  "The 
Marriage  Ring  "  : — 

"  These  are  the  little  lines  of  a  man's  duty,  which,  like 
threads  of  light  from  the  body  of  the  sun,  do  clearly  describe 
all  the  regions  of  his  proper  obligations." 

The  simplicity  and  gravity,  the  light  and  swiftness 
of  Taylor's  exhortations  are  all  summed  up  in  this 
paragraph,  which  includes  even,  if  we  look  deep 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  103 

enough,  their  humanity  and  their  humanism.  This  last 
deserves  special  notice.  We  can  even  trace  with  what 
books  the  preacher  had  been  refreshing  his  memory. 
When  he  wrote  "Apples  of  Sodom"  his  mind  was 
steeped  in  the  Hecuba  of  Euripides;  "The  Marriage 
Ring"  testifies  to  his  deep  enjoyment  of  the  Greek 
Anthology;  when  he  sat  down  to  meditate  on  "Christian 
Simplicity,"  he  had  just  been  reading  the  third  book 
of  Cicero's  Offices.  In  this  he  is  the  greatest,  as  he  was 
the  last,  of  the  seventeenth  century  theologians  who 
took  the  picturesque  parts  of  the  classics  as  their  store- 
house of  allusion ;  in  him  a  phase  of  the  pure  Renais- 
sance reaches  its  highest  point.  No  one  before  him 
had  filled  his  pages  with  half  so  many  images  of 
plastic  beauty :  in  this  he  is  in  our  prose  what  Spenser 
had  been  in  our  poetry.  And  after  him  was  to  follow, 
almost  immediately,  a  generation  blind  alike  to  natural 
phenomena  and  to  the  corporeal  loveliness  embodied  in 
ancient  literature. 

One  curious  omission  will  be  noted  in  the  sermons, 
as  in  the  other  writings  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  The 
absence  of  almost  all  allusion  to  the  life  of  the  poor 
is  very  curious.  Such  references  as  we  may  discover 
are  perfunctory  and  vague.  The  teaching  of  Taylor 
is  in  the  main  aristocratic;  it  is  delivered  from  a 
seraphic  height,  and  addressed  to  all  classes  of  men, 
but  particularly  to  those  who  are  influential  and  well- 
to-do.  No  temptation,  no  frailty  of  the  rich  is  allowed 
to  pass  unindicated  or  unreproved.  The  preacher  is 
speaking  in  the  private  chapel  of  a  great  house,  and 
mainly  to  those  who  are  responsible  from  their  wealth, 
their  intellect,  or  their  influence.  Outside  are  the 
hordes  of  the  wild  Welsh,  but  of  them  the  preacher 


104  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

never  speaks  and  never  seems  to  think.  The  select 
folk  who  came  to  Golden  Grove  to  listen  to  him  ate 
sumptuously  every  day;  their  danger  was  to  forget 
God  in  their  pleasures  and  in  their  indolence ;  and  the 
preacher  reproves  them,  seeks  to  awaken  their  con- 
sciences, draws  them  back  to  duty  by  such  exquisite 
arts  and  appeals  as  would  come  most  directly  home  to 
their  refinement.  This  involves,  to  be  just,  no  harsh 
judgment  upon  Jeremy  Taylor,  even  in  this  one 
particular,  for  he  did  exactly  what  it  was  his  duty 
to  do.  Yet  we  cannot  help  wishing  that  the  demo- 
cratic element  in  society  had  also  had  an  opportunity 
to  attract  him.  It  did  not,  and  it  was  really  not  at 
Golden  Grove,  but  ten  years  later  in  the  court  of 
Louis  Xiv.,  that  this  essentially  modern  note  was  to 
be  sounded.  It  was  Bossuet,  and  not  Taylor,  who 
was  to  introduce  the  definite  consideration  of  the  cause 
of  the  poor,  and  to  bid  the  Christian  world  listen  to 
the  "cri  de  misere  a  1'entour  de  nous,  qui  devrait  nous 
fondre  le  cceur." 

For  ten  years  the  current  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  life 
had  now  been  absolutely  unbroken,  except  by  the 
hand  of  death.  He  had  lived,  almost  as  retired  as 
Moses  in  his  cloud,  in  a  sequestered  valley  of  South 
Wales,  which  was  full  of  the  sound  of  waters,  and  un- 
disturbed by  human  voices.  By  a  dispensation  which 
might  easily  have  seemed  miraculous,  through  the 
cruellest  time  of  distraction  and  peril,  this  exquisite 
talent  had  been  preserved  intact,  hidden  as  if  in  the 
hollow  of  a  mighty  hand,  granted  every  favourable 
opportunity  for  growing  to  its  full  stature.  Nothing 
had  been  omitted  which  could  enhance  the  advantages 
of  this  hermitage,  where  there  was  poverty  and  yet 


in.]  RETIREMENT  AT  GOLDEN  GROVE  105 

no  want,  leisure  enough,  and  yet  some  healthful  busi- 
ness, no  crowd  to  distract  and  press,  but  a  little  circle 
of  auditors,  sympathetic,  earnest  and  appreciative.  In 
this  beautiful  woodland,  with  a  roll  of  the  winding 
Towey  bent  round  him  like  an  arm,  Jeremy  Taylor 
had  grown  to  be  the  greatest  prose  writer  in  England. 
He  had  no  rival  among  those  who  understood  and 
knew.  It  might  well  be  that  he  was  sometimes 
content  to  drop  further  struggle,  and  to  look  forward 
with  satisfaction  to  a  quiet  burial  in  the  churchyard  of 
Llanfihangel.  Like  the  prophet  in  Alfred  de  Vigny's 
poem,  he  might  cry  • — 

"  O  Seigneur,  j'ai  ve"cu  puissant  et  solitaire, 
Laissez-moi  m'endormir  du  sommeil  de  la  terre." 

But  this  was  not  to  be.  *  A  variety  of  circum- 
stances, without  immediately  severing  his  connection 
with  Golden  Grove,  was  now  to  draw  him  out  into  the 
light  of  common  day,  and  cause  him  to  take  part  in 
the  anxieties  and  afflictions  of  his  fellow-men. 


CHAPTER    IV 

YEARS    OF    AFFLICTION 

(1654-1658) 

JEREMY  TAYLOR  had  enjoyed  complete  immunity  at 
Golden  Grove.  No  one  had  disturbed  the  growth  of 
his  soul.  His  genius  had  spread  its  branches  and 
flowered  like  a  magnolia  under  the  shadow  of  a 
southern  wall  in  a  quiet  courtyard.  In  that  period  of 
the  cruel  discomfiture  of  his  friends,  he  alone  was 
protected  by  his  powerlessness,  by  the  modesty  of  his 
fortunes.  As  he  said  himself,  "No  man  goes  about 
to  poison  a  poor  man's  pitcher,  nor  lays  plots  to  forage 
his  little  garden,  made  for  the  hospital  of  two  bee-hives, 
and  the  feasting  of  a  few  Pythagorean  herb-eaters." 
But  when  the  poor  man  leaves  his  rosemary  and  his 
rue,  and  wanders  forth  into  the  market-place,  he  finds 
himself  jostled  by  the  throng,  and  may  be  can  never 
recover  his  hermitage.  This  is  precisely  what  happened 
to  our  divine,  whom  circumstances,  or  his  own  im- 
patience, now  tempted  forth  into  the  world,  at  first 
only  on  short  visits,  and  then  altogether,  with  the 
result  that,  lover  of  contemplation  as  he  was,  he  never 
again  knew  what  perfect  security  and  perfect  rest 
meant. 

It  is  probable  that  for  some  time  past  he  had  been 

106 


CHAP,  iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  107 

in  the  habit  of  coming  up  to  town  whenever  he  was 
about  to  publish  a  book.  He  seems  to  have  been  in 
frequent  personal  contact  with  Royston,  his  publisher, 
who  is  much  less  likely  to  have  travelled  down  into 
Carmarthenshire  to  see  his  client  than  to  have  offered 
him  hospitality  in  London.  From  1654  onwards  this 
ceases  to  be  a  matter  of  conjecture;  we  find  Jeremy 
Taylor  frequently  going  up  to  town,  and  light  is 
thrown  upon  his  movements  by  his  forming  a  new 
and  most  valuable  friendship,  namely  with  John  Evelyn. 
This  gentleman  was  one  of  the  most  entertaining  and 
intelligent  persons  of  that  age;  endowed  with  extra- 
ordinary activity  both  of  mind  and  body,  a  "philo- 
sopher," as  men  of  science  were  then  called,  who  was 
doing  as  much  as  any  one  in  Europe  to  encourage 
research  and  prepare  for  the  reception  of  new  truth. 
He  was  scarcely  less  actively  interested  in  the  fine 
arts  and  in  literature,  and  he  wrote  exceedingly  well 
in  English.  Evelyn  was  one  of  those  beings  who 
dazzle  their  own  generation,  and  puzzle  ours  to  account 
for  the  fact  that  they  were  not  absolutely  first-rate. 
It  seems  as  though  nothing  but  a  little  more  intensity 
in  any  one  particular  direction  was  needed  to  turn 
Evelyn  from  a  paragon  of  all  the  talents  into  an 
undisputed  genius. 

This  delightful  man  was  in  his  thirty-fourth  year 
when  Taylor  became  acquainted  with  him.  Evelyn 
had  been  a  gentleman-commoner  of  Balliol  when 
Taylor  preached  his  university  sermon,  but  we  do  not 
know  that  they  had  met.  He  had  left  England  when 
the  Civil  War  broke  out,  and  he  had  lived  for  several 
years  in  Italy,  making  a  very  close  study  of  the 
antiquities  and  of  modern  Italian  painting,  architec- 


108  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAF. 

ture,  and  sculpture.  He  had  certainly  grown  to  be 
the  leading  English  connoisseur  of  his  time.  Then  he 
had  slowly  returned  northwards,  and  having  married 
an  English  heiress  in  Paris,  he  had  determined  to 
venture  upon  returning  to  this  country,  in  order  to 
take  up  an  estate  which  devolved  upon  his  wife.  But 
he  was  unsettled,  until,  at  the  opening  of  1653,  he 
obtained  possession  of  the  Browne  property  called 
Sayes  Court,  near  Deptford,  in  Kent,  which  had 
belonged  to  his  wife's  family.  He  was  tired  of 
wandering  about  the  world ;  he  wanted  to  give 
literary  form  to  the  innumerable  scientific  and  anti- 
quarian notes  he  had  taken,  and  he  began  at  once, 
with  feverish  eagerness,  to  lay  out  the  grounds  and 
furnish  the  apartments  of  Sayes  Court,  that  it  might 
become  his  retreat. 

Evelyn,  who  at  the  end  of  his  crowded  life  was  able 
truthfully  to  say  that  his  experience  was  "all  is  vanity 
which  is  not  honest,  and  there  is  no  solid  wisdom  but 
in  piety,"  was  a  devoted  Anglican,  and  was  very 
desirous  of  attaching  to  his  household  some  sequestrated 
minister  of  the  national  church.  It  was  necessary  to 
act  with  caution,  for  any  public  patronage  of  clergy- 
men was  suspiciously  regarded.  His  choice  originally 
fell  on  a  worthy  divine  of  Eltham,  Richard  Owen,  who 
seems  to  have  acted  for  a  time  as  private  chaplain  at 
Sayes  Court.  The  active  and  illuminated  mind  of 
Evelyn,  however,  with  its  buoyant  ambition,  could 
hardly  receive  full  satisfaction  from  the  discourses  of 
a  humdrum  country  practitioner.  At  this  time  Crom- 
well tacitly  permitted  a  single  pulpit  in  London,  that 
of  St.  Gregory's,  a  little  church  which  stood  close  to 
St.  Paul's,  to  be  filled  by  a  succession  of  Anglican 


IT.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  109 

clergy.  He  doubtless  considered  that  this  was  a 
salutary  relief  for  an  eloquence  which,  if  pent  up  too 
rigorously,  might  cause  a  dangerous  explosion.  On 
the  15th  of  March  1654  Evelyn  "went  to  London  to 
hear  the  famous  Dr.  Jeremy  Taylor  at  St.  Gregory's, 
concerning  evangelical  perfection."  This  was  perhaps 
Evelyn's  earliest  approach  to  one  who  was  to  take  a 
place  among  the  dearest  of  his  friends. 

One  of  those  churchmen  with  whom  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  now  in  frequent  correspondence  was  John  Warner, 
Bishop  of  Rochester,  to  whom  he  dedicated  the  treatise 
on  Transubstantiation,  called  The  Real  Presence  of  Christ 
in  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  which  was  his  solitary  publica- 
tion in  1654.  Warner,  who  was  now  in  his  seventieth 
year,  had  been  one  of  the  most  inflexible  supporters 
of  Charles  I.;  in  him,  as  Fuller  said,  "dying  Episcopacy 
gave  the  last  groan  in  the  House  of  Lords."  He  was 
a  most  generous  benefactor,  out  of  his  private  purse, 
to  the  distressed  and  ejected  clergy ;  for  several  years 
he  had  been  wandering  about  Wales,  doing  what  kind- 
ness he  could,  and  had  come  into  personal  contact  with 
Jeremy  Taylor,  who  speaks  of  the  "favours"  with 
which  Warner  has  "already  endeared  his  thankfulness 
and  service,"  and  of  the  Bishop's  having  "assisted  his 
condition"  out  of  "the  remains"  of  his  "lessened 
fortunes."  The  activity  and  munificence  of  the  ejected 
Bishop  of  Rochester  were  constant  thorns  in  the  side 
of  the  Parliamentarians,  who  sequestrated  nine-tenths 
of  his  large  personal  estate,  and  would  have  imprisoned 
the  indomitable  old  man  if  they  could  only  have 
caught  him.  Considering  that  Warner  was  in  the 
most  careful  retirement  in  1654,  it  was  perhaps  more 
zealous  than  tactful  of  Taylor  to  dedicate  a  treatise  to 


110  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

him  by  name,  although  there  is  nothing  in  Tfo  Real 
Presence  fitted  to  exasperate  the  political  authorities. 

In  this  work  Taylor  returns  to  the  fight  with  an 
old  enemy,  whom  he  had  long  neglected,  Rome.  He 
says  that  the  supposed  destruction  of  the  Church  of 
England  has  filled  the  Romanists  with  a  "strange 
triumphal  gaiety."  In  particular,  he  speaks  with 
bitter  indignation  of  one  who  was  formerly  the  son 
of  the  Church  of  England,  "  but  who  ran  away  from 
her  sorrow,  and  disinherited  himself  because  she  was 
not  able  to  give  him  a  temporal  portion."  The  utter- 
ances of  this  man,  whom  Taylor  refuses  to  name,  have 
principally  stirred  him  up  to  write  this  book;  it  is 
believed  that  he  refers  to  Bishop  Morton's  former 
secretary,  John  Sarjeaunt,  who  threw  up  his  post  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  and  lived  as  a  priest 
in  a  college  of  seculars  at  Lisbon  until  1652,  when 
he  came  back  to  England  as  a  Roman  propagandist. 
Taylor  had  perhaps  had  a  visit  at  Golden  Grove  from 
Sarjeaunt,  for  he  says  that  he  "has  been  by  chance 
engaged  in  a  conference  with  a  person  of  another 
persuasion,"  whom  in  a  letter  to  Sheldon  he  calls  a 
Jesuit,  "the  man  not  unlearned  nor  unwary." 

In  The  Real  Presence  we  are  made  to  feel  that  Taylor, 
as  a  pure  man  of  letters,  is  slipping  away  from  us. 
This  is  a  piece  of  composition  seriously  inferior  to  any- 
thing else  that  he  had  written  since  he  arrived  in 
Wales.  It  is  apparently  thrown  off  in  great  haste, 
and  Taylor  was  never  at  his  best  when  he  improvised. 
It  is  written  to  impress  those  who  will  be  quite 
indifferent  to  the  charm  of  his  language  and  the 
luxuriance  of  his  imagery,  and  on  whom,  therefore, 
he  is  careful  to  waste  neither  of  these  deliberate 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  111 

ornaments.  On  the  other  hand,  here,  if  ever,  what 
was  called,  in  theological  circles,  "learning,"  would  be 
effective,  if  nowhere  else,  and  Taylor  is  redundant, 
from  Porphyry  and  Justin  Martyr,  in  sentences  of 
monstrous  prolixity.  The  arguments  of  The  Real 
Presence  were  contested,  even  by  those  whom  they 
were  intended  to  support,  and  the  author  was  charged, 
as  of  old  by  Chillingworth  in  Oxford,  with  not  listen- 
ing to  what  his  opponents  said,  and  with  indulging 
in  illogical  rhetoric.  The  book  contains  some  fine 
passages,  and  a  few  lively  ones,  but  on  the  whole  it  is 
controversy  and  not  literature.  It  may  be  noted  in 
passing  that  Taylor  shows  himself  well  acquainted 
with  his  Catholic  contemporaries  in  France,  and  quotes, 
among  others,  from  the  great  Arnauld  of  Port-Royal,  as 
again  in  later  volumes. 

Evelyn  had  evidently  introduced  himself  to  Taylor 
soon  after  his  sitting  under  him  in  St.  Gregory's.  But 
their  intimacy  seems  to  have  sprung  up  in  connection 
with  a  misfortune  which  happened  to  Taylor  at  the 
beginning  of  1655.  It  appears  that  the  divine  had 
shown  the  preface  of  a  new  book,  The  Golden  Grove, 
either  in  manuscript  or  proof,  to  Evelyn,  who  had 
highly  commended  its  outspoken  statement  that  "  never 
did  the  excellency  of  Episcopal  government  appear  so 
demonstratively  and  conspicuously  as  now."  That  was 
a  hard  saying  for  Parliament  and  the  governing  pres- 
byters, who  were,  moreover,  determining  upon  a  more 
vigorous  suppression  of  Anglican  preachers. 

In  December  1654  the  laxity  of  which  the  Anglican 
clergy  had  been  slowly  taking  advantage  was  sharply 
reproved  by  Parliament.  There  appeared  a  general 
tendency  to  return  to  the  old  intolerant  methods,  and 


112  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  whole  question  of  permitting  sectarian  worship 
was  discussed.  When  Jeremy  Taylor  went  on  to 
speak  of  Cromwell  as  "the  son  of  Zippor,"  it  is  no 
wonder  that  Evelyn  thought  that  he  was  daring  the 
government  to  undo  him.  The  Golden  Grove  was 
entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  on  the  26th  of  January 
1655,  and  exactly  a  fortnight  afterwards  Evelyn,  who 
had  been  away  at  Woodcot  since  New  Year's  Day, 
came  home  to  Sayes  Court,  and  found  two  letters, 
one  informing  him  of  Taylor's  arrest  and  the  other 
of  his  release.  As  Evelyn,  in  consideration  of  what 
TJie  Golden  Grove  contained,  had  been  very  anxious 
about  his  friend's  safety,  and  had  been  quite  prepared 
to  hear  "  sad  news  and  deplore  your  restraint,"  it  is 
evident  that  Taylor's  imprisonment  was  very  brief. 
Perhaps  the  proclamation  of  religious  liberty,  pro- 
mulgated on  the  15th  of  February,  was  the  immediate 
excuse  for  his  release.  We  have  no  light  at  all  upon 
the  locality  where  he  was  confined,  but  it  was  probably 
the  Tower  of  London;  he  would  be  required  to  pay 
a  fine,  and  detained  until  his  friends  had  produced 
the  money. 

Deeply  sympathising  with  Taylor's  affliction,  Evelyn 
hastened  to  strengthen  their  friendship,  and  on  the  18th 
of  March  went  to  town  on  purpose  to  hear  the  great 
divine  preach.  Less  than  a  fortnight  later  Evelyn 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  take  a  serious  step,  and  on 
the  31st  he  "made  a  visit  to  Dr.  Jeremy  Taylor  to 
confer  with  him  about  some  spiritual  matters,  using 
him  thenceforward  as  my  ghostly  father."  Many 
years  afterwards,  looking  back  upon  the  past,  Evelyn 
besought  God  Almighty  to  keep  him  thankful  for  the 
impulse  which  carried  him  to  Taylor,  and  to  make 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  113 

him  always  mindful  of  "his  heavenly  assistances." 
Taylor  was  manifestly  now  in  danger,  but  preserved 
from  it  by  the  zeal  and  influence  of  Evelyn,  to  whom 
it  was  probably  due  that  he  was  so  slow  in  returning  to 
his  Welsh  home.  In  the  meantime  the  early  months 
of  1655  present  two  works  for  our  consideration. 

The  picturesque  title  of  The  Golden  Grove  and  its 
fiery  preface  of  revolt  from  under  "  the  harrows  and 
saws  of  impertinent  and  ignorant  preachers,"  are  likely 
to  awaken  anticipations  in  the  literary  reader  which 
the  body  of  the  treatise  can  only  disappoint.  It  is  a 
manual  of  daily  prayers  and  litanies,  so  phrased  as  to 
contain  a  brief  summary  of  all  that  a  Christian  should 
believe,  practise,  or  desire.  It  begins  with  a  Short 
Catechism,  which  Taylor  hoped  would  be  accepted  by 
moderate  churchmen  as  a  temporary  substitute  for  that 
which  had  been  suppressed  with  the  Liturgy.  This  is 
followed  by  an  exposition  of  the  Creed,  and  that  by 
"Agenda,"  or  a  list  of  acts  of  piety  to  be  performed 
throughout  the  day.  The  next  section,  "Via  Pacis," 
is  largely  a  paraphrase  from  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  and 
is  followed  by  "  Postulanda,"  a  dilution — for  we  can 
call  it  nothing  else — of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Then  follow, 
concluding  the  treatise,  a  set  of  devotions  for  the  week ; 
many  of  these  have  the  purity,  and  one  or  two  some- 
thing of  the  magnificence,  of  their  author,  but  they  are 
in  his  least  personal  vein.  On  the  whole  TJie  Golden 
Grove  offers  very  little  worthy  the  notice  of  the  literary 
student  of  Taylor's  works. 

But  at  the  close  of  it,  and  appended  to  it  as  by  an 
afterthought,  is  a  slender  collection  of  poems,  Festival 
Hymns,  which  has  the  special  interest  attaching  to  the 
only  work  in  verse  which  Jeremy  Taylor  published. 

H 


114  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

He  himself  indulged  in  no  illusions  about  the  merit  of 
these  exercises.  A  year  later  he  looked  back  upon 
their  publication  with  a  blush,  and  when  Evelyn  had 
the  complaisance  to  praise  them,  their  author  replied, 
"I  could  not  but  smile  at  my  own  weaknesses,  and 
very  much  love  the  great  candour  and  sweetness  of 
your  nature,  that  you  were  pleased  to  endure  my 
English  poetry.  But  I  could  not  be  removed  from  my 
certain  knowledge  of  my  own  greatest  weaknesses  in 
it."  Taylor  was  also,  about  this  time,  translating  part 
of  the  De  Rerum  Natura  into  English  verse,  but  desisted 
when  he  was  shown  by  Evelyn  the  version  of  Lucretius 
which  that  philosopher  had  made.  All  this  is  curious 
as  showing  that  Jeremy  Taylor,  about  1655,  having 
risen  to  the  height  of  his  mastery  of  prose,  was 
attempting  to  extend  his  sovereignty  into  the  province 
of  verse.  Had  he  attempted  this  twenty  years  earlier, 
it  is  probable  that  he  might  have  trained  himself  to  be 
an  accomplished  poet  of  the  artificial  order ;  but  he  made 
the  experiment  too  late. 

The  greater  part  of  the  Festival  Hymns  is  a  sort  of 
cantata  on  the  mysteries  of  religion,  arranged  in  con- 
nected sections.  A  quarter  of  a  century  had  passed 
since  certain  eccentricities  of  the  least  happily  inspired 
pieces  in  Herbert's  Temple  had  opened  the  door  to  mere 
oddity  in  the  form  of  religious  poetry.  The  example 
of  Cowley — although  his  Pindarique  Odes,  those  great 
dissolvers  of  the  public  taste,  were  as  yet  hardly  known 
— may  have  had  some  influence  on  Taylor.  But  the 
one  precedent  author  whom  he  had  manifestly  read, 
and  whose  fantastic  innovations  in  metre  he  accepted 
with  alacrity,  was  Henry  Vaughan,  the  Silurist,  the 
first  part  of  whose  Silex  Scintillans  had  appeared  in 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  115 

1650  while  the  second  was  dated  1655.  It  is  impossible 
to  connect  Vaughan  with  Taylor  in  any  historical  way. 
But  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  lord  of  Golden 
Grove  was  a  distant  kinsman  of  the  Silurist,  that  Llan- 
dilo  and  Llansaintffraid  were  within  riding  distance 
of  one  another,  and  that  in  Mrs.  Philips,  "  the  Match- 
less Orinda,"  of  whom  we  shall  presently  speak,  Henry 
Vaughan  and  Jeremy  Taylor  had  an  enthusiastic  com- 
mon friend. 

The  versification  in  the  Festival  Hymns  consists  of 
short  lines,  arbitrarily  broken  up  by  rhymes,  and 
arranged  on  no  rhythmical  principle.  No  system  could 
be  less  tuneful,  and  in  comparison  with  these  hymns 
the  worst  odes  of  Cowley  and  even  of  Flatman  are 
musical ;  what  is  curious  in  so  learned  a  writer,  Taylor's 
rhymes  are  often  scarcely  assonances.  It  was  certainly 
in  the  Silex  Scintillans  that  Taylor  found  his  model  for 
his  eccentricity  of  metre ;  we  may  perhaps  go  further, 
and  in  Vaughan's  irregular  canticles  called  "  The  Jews  " 
and  "  Jesus  Weeping  "  detect  the  identical  poems  which 
Taylor  read  at  the  close  of  1654  and  straightway  sat 
down  to  imitate.  He  was  far  too  skilful  a  craftsman 
to  fail  to  produce  something  ingenious,  and  the  follow- 
ing passage  may  be  quoted  as  presenting  Jeremy  Taylor 
at  his  best  as  a  poet : — 

"  What  ravish'd  heart,  seraphic  tongue  or  eyes, 
Clear  as  the  morning's  rise, 
Can  speak,  or  think,  or  see 
That  bright  eternity  ? 
There  the  King's  great  transparent  throne 
Is  of  an  entire  jasper  stone  : 

There  the  eye 
Of  the  chrysolite, 
And  a  sky 


116  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Of  diamonds,  rubies,  chrysoprase, 
And  above  all,  Thy  holy  face, 
Makes  an  eternal  clarity. 
When  Thou  Thy  jewels  up  dost  bind,  that  day 
Remember  us,  we  pray." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  instructive  text 
on  which  to  expatiate  upon  the  essential  difference 
between  poetry  and  prose.  For  here  are  all  the  ele- 
ments of  imagination  and  of  language  which  Taylor 
would  have  employed  in  building  up  one  of  his  dazzling 
prose  sentences,  lifting  it  into  our  vision  like  some 
perfect  marble  campanile  against  the  blue  Italian  sky. 
But  this  strophe  is  a  mere  mistake  ;  it  has  neither  the 
plastic  harmony  of  prose,  nor  the  severer  and  more 
mechanical  beauty  of  verse.  It  misses  either  perfec- 
tion, and  is  merely  a  brilliant  instance  of  the  failure 
of  a  great  genius  to  express  itself  in  an  unfamiliar 
medium. 

On  the  3rd  of  May  1655  Jeremy  Taylor's  unlucky 
volume,  the  Unum  Necessarium,  the  production  of  which, 
though  he  acted  in  the  purest  good  faith,  was  to  destroy 
his  peace  of  mind  and  make  him  an  army  of  enemies, 
was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall.  It  was  not  published, 
however,  until  October,  and  we  now  enter  a  very 
troubled  and  painful  period  of  Taylor's  life,  where  the 
sequence  of  causes  and  events  is  extremely  obscure. 
What  seems  to  be  certain  is  that,  having  corrected  the 
proofs  of  his  book,  he  left  for  Wales  in  May,  and  on 
the  road  was  arrested  and  thrown  into  Chepstow  Castle. 
What  was  the  reason  of  this  second  imprisonment? 
It  has  been  attributed  to  the  sentiments  of  the  Unum 
Necessarium,  but  the  tenor  of  that  work  offered  no  excuse 
for  such  persecution  had  it  been  known,  and,  as  we  now 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  117 

find,  it  was  not  yet  published.  If  the  divine  had  been 
arrested  for  unlawful  preaching  in  London,  it  would 
not  have  been  in  Chepstow  but  in  the  Tower  that  we 
should  have  found  him.  And  the  harsh  treatment 
which  he  received  from  old  church  friends,  like  Duppa 
and  Warner,  would  have  been  peculiarly  untimely  and 
unkind.  The  correspondence  with  these  people,  and 
with  others,  during  Taylor's  captivity,  offers  no  sort  of 
suggestion  that  he  was  confined  for  conscience'  sake. 
The  present  writer  has  unwillingly  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  Taylor  was  probably  arrested  at  the  suit 
of  some  Welsh  creditor,  and  for  a  debt  which  he  could 
not  pay. 

Taylor's  poverty  at  this  period  of  his  life  was  ex- 
treme. Bishop  Heber  thought  that  he  was  married  by 
this  time  to  Joanna  Bridges,  and  through  this  second 
wife  possessed  "a  competent  estate."  But  a  careful 
examination  of  the  correspondence  shows  this  to  be  a 
mistake.  Taylor's  letters  of  this  time  are  pitiful  in 
their  confession  of  poverty,  and  for  reasons  which  are 
not  beyond  conjecture  neither  Evelyn  on  the  one  hand 
nor  Carbery  on  the  other  seemed  to  be  willing  to 
advance  him  money.  The  Unum  Necessarium  has  a 
dedication  to  Lord  Carbery,  which  is  dragged  in  very 
awkwardly,  because  the  book  had  already,  and  much 
more  appropriately,  been  introduced  by  a  letter  to 
Duppa  and  Warner.  Perhaps,  as  his  distresses  gathered 
about  him,  he  rapidly  wrote  the  dedication  to  Lord 
Carbery  as  an  appeal  to  his  generosity,  and  in  that 
case  he  was  disappointed,  for  Lord  Carbery  evidently 
did  not  respond.  And  now,  quite  abruptly,  Lord 
Carbery's  name  disappears  from  the  chronicle  of  Taylor's 
life.  When  he  was  released  from  Chepstow,  it  was  not 


118  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

to  Llanfihangel-Aberbythych  that  lie  proceeded,  but 
to  the  house  of  Joanna  Bridges,  at  Man-dinam.  Nor, 
in  spite  of  all  that  his  biographers  have  said,  is  there 
any  evidence  that  Taylor  ever  visited  Golden  Grove 
again. 

Jeremy  Taylor  had  lived  too  long  in  the  shelter  of 
an  irresponsible  asylum  to  face  the  world,  and  such  a 
rough  world,  with  any  discretion.  Everything  which 
he  did,  on  the  occasion  of  his  venturing  from  his  Welsh 
retreat,  was  lacking  in  ripeness  of  judgment.  The  year 
1655  is  marked  at  every  turn  by  the  amiable  and 
enthusiastic  divine's  defect  of  common  sense.  In  the 
first  place,  it  was  most  rash  and  unworldly  to  advertise 
his  retreat  publicly  and  needlessly  by  calling  his 
catechism  for  the  use  of  anti-Parliamentarian  persons, 
with  its  reckless  preface,  The  Golden  Grove.  It  is  reason- 
able to  infer  that  when  he  was  thrown  into  prison, 
on  the  first  occasion,  for  the  outspoken  opposition  of 
this  work  to  the  ruling  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
Cromwell's  attention  was  drawn  to  the  title,  and  that 
Lord  Carbery  was  sharply  called  to  order  for  the  in- 
discretions of  his  chaplain.  Moreover,  it  had  been 
announced  that  after  November  1  it  would  be  illegal 
for  him  to  keep  a  chaplain  in  his  house  at  all,  on  pain 
of  banishment  and  sequestration.  The  position  of  the 
ejected  clergy  had  therefore  become  one  of  great  peril 
to  their  friends,  though,  as  it  proved,  the  practice  of 
the  law  was  less  vindictive  than  its  theory.  But  Lord 
Carbery  was  a  timid  man,  and  nothing  we  know  of  his 
character  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  he  would 
hesitate  for  one  moment  in  sacrificing  his  clerical  friend 
to  the  safety  of  his  estates.  If  this  be  the  case,  it 
accounts  for  the  sudden  cessation  of  all  reference  to 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  119 

Golden  Grove,  and  for  Taylor's  unpleasant  surprise 
when,  poor  already,  he  approached  his  home,  to  find 
himself  deprived  of  the  only  means  of  support  left  to 
him. 

At  such  a  moment,  a  man  more  worldly-wise  would 
have  acted  with  discretion,  but  Taylor  had  nothing  of 
the  serpent  in  his  disposition.  For  some  reason,  which 
it  is  impossible  to  determine,  Evelyn  thought  it  proper, 
or  wise,  or  perhaps  really  kind,  to  allow  him  to  remain 
in  Chepstow  Castle  for  the  present,  merely  looking 
about  to  provide  a  means  of  living  for  him  when  once 
he  was  released.  In  this  conjuncture,  Taylor  had  no 
influential  friends  but  the  High  Church  associates  of 
his  old  Oxford  days,  several  of  whom  were  wealthy, 
and  all  had  been  well-disposed  to  him.  But  precisely 
in  May  1655,  as  we  shall  now  find,  he  had  contrived 
to  offend  every  one  of  them. 

In  March,  soon  after  his  original  release,  Taylor  had 
had  an  interview  with  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  Brian 
Duppa,  who  was  up  in  London  on  one  of  his  rare 
visits.  Two  or  three  years  earlier  Taylor  had  con- 
sulted Duppa,  the  one  living  churchman  whose  opinion 
he  always  seems  most  eager  to  conciliate,  about  "the 
body  of  cases  of  conscience  "  which  he  had  so  long  had 
on  his  mind,  and  which  eventually,  after  a  thousand 
vicissitudes,  saw  the  light  as  that  most  elephantine  of 
all  theological  works,  the  Ductor  Dubitantium.  In  the 
preparation  of  this  book  Jeremy  Taylor  displayed 
an  extraordinary  firmness,  which  it  is  perhaps  not 
derogatory  to  his  virtue  to  call  an  amazing  obstinacy. 
Nobody  welcomed  the  Ductor  Dubitantium.  The  pub- 
lisher, eager  to  receive  whatever  else  came  from 
Taylor's  pen,  rejected  or  postponed  it  time  after  time. 


120  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Duppa,  indeed,  not  only  "assented  "  to  the  scheme  of  it, 
when  it  was  first  laid  before  him,  but  "  desired  Taylor 
to  proceed  seriously  and  soberly  with  it,"  and  promised 
"to  pray  for  a  blessing  on  the  undertaking."  But 
when  Duppa  said  that,  he  had  not  seen  the  work. 

Driven  inexorably  by  his  conscience,  and  caring 
nothing  for  what  the  temporal  results  might  be, 
Taylor  pushed  forward  the  vast  scher  •,  but  the  more 
his  friends  saw  of  it  the  less  they  liked  it.  Mean- 
while, Taylor  became  aware  that  it  was  "  necessary  by 
way  of  introduction  [to  a  monograph  on  the  conscience] 
to  premit  in  a  more  general  way  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  repentance."  He  laid  this  scheme  also 
before  Duppa,  and  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  though 
obviously  a  little  anxious,  gave  a  prudent  sanction 
to  this,  although  he  suspected  that  on  the  subject  of 
a  late  repentance  Jeremy  Taylor  held  unusual  views. 
But  while  Duppa  warned  him,  "  with  a  fatherly  con- 
fidence," that  in  the  very  difficult  matter  he  had  / 
undertaken  he  would  "need  a  prudence  more  than 
ordinary,"  the  Bishop  did  not  so  much  as  dream  that 
Taylor  would  leap  into  a  still  more  terrible  thorn- 
bush,  and  advance  .what  seemed  to  be  positive  heresy 
on  the  dogma  of  original  sin.  In  the  face  of  all  this, 
it  was  indeed  a  saintly  simplicity  which  led  Taylor 
to  inscribe  the,  book  on  repentance,  which  neither 
prelate  had  seen,  to  Brian  Duppa,  as  Bishop  of  Salis- 
bury, and  to  John  Warner,  as  Bishop  of  Rochester. 
Meanwhile,  Chepstow  Castle  opened  its  jaws  and 
swallowed  up  the  hapless  Taylor. 

But  Koyston,  who  had  secured  the  manuscript, 
alarmed  by  the  catastrophe,  stopped  the  printing  for 
some  months,  and  it  was  not  until  August  that  he 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  121 

bethought  him  of  sending  to  Duppa  a  portion  of  the 
book.  He  forwarded  a  bundle  of  proofs,  without 
beginning  or  end,  and  without  any  indication  whether 
it  was  by  Taylor's  wish  or  not  that  he  sent  them. 
Duppa  read  Avhat  was  consigned  to  him,  first  with 
bewilderment,  then  with  horror,  then  with  angry 
indignation.  Here  was  a  book,  the  publication  of 
which  Duppa  had  no  power  to  stop,  which  might 
be  supposed  to  have  received  the  approbation  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rochester  and  himself,  a  book  which 
attacked,  in  his  judgment  and  Warner's,  that  "in- 
tegrity," that  is  to  say  that  orthodoxy,  which  was 
dearer  to  them  both  than  their  own  lives.  And  here 
was  the  author  of  that  book  absolutely  unapproach- 
able, in  prison ;  while  the  least  publicity  would  only 
increase  the  scandal  which  the  sequestrated  bishops 
feared  so  much. 

At  all  events,  if  Jeremy  Taylor  could  not  be  ap- 
proached, he  could  be  written  to.  Duppa,  though  the 
mildest  and  kindest  of  men,  was  roused  to  vehement 
anger.  He  wrote  to  the  imprisoned  Taylor,  and  told 
him  in  the  sharpest  terms  "  what  a  scandal  it  would 
bring  upon  his  poor  desolate  mother,  the  Church, 
which  is  likely  to  receive  a  greater  wound  by  this 
unwary  blow  of  his  than  by  all  the  unreasonable  acts 
of  persecution  which  her  malicious  enemies  have  done 
against  her."  Duppa  wrote  a  great  deal  more  of  this 
kind,  and  even  "could  not  forbear  to  write  sharper 
things  than  these."  Jeremy  Taylor  replied,  gently 
and  regretfully,  but  "it  seems,"  as  Duppa  complained 
to  his  friends,  "that  nothing  could  work  upon  him." 
Taylor  wrote  to  defend  his  views,  not  to  excuse  them. 
When  Duppa  wrote  again,  Taylor  did  not  answer. 


122  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

The  bishops  comforted  themselves  that  perhaps  the 
book  would  never  appear,  and  that  if  it  did,  no  one 
would  know  that  they  had  seemed  to  encourage  it  in 
its  inception.  Meanwhile,  Royston,  having  plucked 
up  heart,  proceeded  with  the  printing,  and  in  October 
the  Unum  Necessarium  was  published  in  London.  What 
was  the  horror  of  Duppa  and  Warner  to  find,  when 
they  turned  to  it,  that  the  terrible  and  embarrassing 
volume  was  dedicated  to  them  both.  All  our  love  for 
Jeremy  Taylor  cannot  prevent  our  sympathising  with 
the  Bishop  of  Salisbury  in  his  scream  of  indignation. 
"  Without  any  way  of  acquainting  me  with  it,  he  has 
been  pleased  to  make  use  of  my  name  in  the  very 
forehead  of  it ! " 

It  was  part  of  Taylor's  unworldly  simplicity  that  he 
could  not  be  made  to  see  that  he  ought  not  to  have 
done  this.  He  had  written  a  very  severe  treatise  on 
a  difficult  theological  point,  which  he  desired  to  bring 
strenuously  under  the  notice  of  the  Bishops  of  Salis- 
bury and  Rochester.  He  did  not  for  a  moment  realise 
that  by  dedicating  the  work  to  them  he  pledged  them 
to  a  support  of  his  views.  In  his  lack  of  business 
experience,  he  did  not  perceive  the  extremely  delicate 
position  in  which  he  was  placing  the  ex-prelates,  nor 
the  injury  he  was  doing  them  in  identifying  them 
with  doctrines  Avhich  were  detestable  to  them.  Warner 
seems  to  have  taken  the  matter  philosophically,  but 
Duppa  was  excessively  agitated,  and  actually  sent  round 
privately,  among  his  friends,  a  sort  of  circular  denoun- 
cing Taylor's  arguments.  He  says,  "  If  I  by  my  silence 
should  have  given  way  to  them,  I  should  have  been 
highly  guilty,  and  deservedly  lost  myself  in  the  opinion 
of  all  good  men."  The  stir  produced  among  churchmen 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  123 

by  the  Unum  Necessarium  justified,  it  must  be  admitted, 
Duppa's  nervous  apprehensions. 

The  book  has  long  ceased  to  awaken  alarm,  and  its 
principal  fault  may  now  seem  to  be  a  wearisome  pro- 
lixity, a  hammering  at  nails  which  were  already  up  to 
their  heads  in  every  instructed  conscience.  Probably, 
but  for  one  chapter,  the  nature  of  which  has  already 
been  briefly  mentioned,  even  seventeenth-century  readers 
would  not  have  been  scandalised  by  it.  The  Unum 
Necessarium  is  a  treatise  written  with  the  purpose  "that 
the  strictnesses  of  a  holy  life  be  thought  necessary,  and 
that  repentance  may  be  no  more  that  trifling  little 
piece  of  duty  to  which  the  errors  of  the  late  schools 
of  learning,  and  the  desires  of  men  to  be  deceived  in 
this  article,  have  reduced  it."  This  was  a  subject  fit 
for  a  single  sermon,  but  it  scarcely  needed  such  very 
lengthy  treatment  in  so  thick  a  volume.  But  the 
importance  of  repentance  had  been  interesting  Taylor 
more  and  more  ;  it  was  "a  catholicon  to  the  evils  of  the 
soul  of  every  man."  The  book  is,  in  fact,  a  chip,  or 
rather  a  log,  from  the  workshop  of  his  immense  Ductor 
Dubitantium.  His  investigations  into  the  psychology  of 
conscience  led  him  to  insist  on  the  necessity  of  a  holy 
life.  He  found  people  willing  to  go  on  living  in  a 
condition  of  sin  without  danger  or  reproof,  hoping 
all  would  be  well  at  the  last.  This  state  of  mind  was 
a  stumbling-block  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  who  argued, 
properly  enough,  that  if  a  holy  life  is  not  necessary, 
it  is  mere  waste  of  time  for  a  theologian  to  go  into 
a  vast  series  of  nice  cases  of  conscience.  But  what 
are  men  bound  to  repent  of  ?  This  question  led  him 
into  the  very  thorny  province  of  original  sin,  where 
unfortunately  he  was  the  victim  of  what  one  of  his 


124  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

warmest  admirers  has  called  "  an  inaccuracy  of  reason- 
ing which  led  him  into  a  partial  heterodoxy."  The 
heresy  consisted  in  a  denial  "that  the  depravation  of 
man's  nature  after  the  fall  was  so  total  as  had  been 
generally  apprehended."  This  conviction  led  Taylor 
to  hold  that  repentance  is  not  applicable  to  original 
sin,  because  a  man  cannot  be  asked  to  repent  of  a  state 
of  things  entirely  beyond  his  own  control. 

It  was  the  chapter  on  original  sin,  and  not  the 
treatment  of  death-bed  repentances,  which  caused 
the  scandal.  In  fact,  as  regards  the  second  of  these 
dogmas,  the  author  slightly  reduces  the  severity  which 
he  had  shown  in  earlier  books,  and  here  he  was  sup- 
ported by  a  capable  champion  in  Hammond.  But  his 
treatment  of  the  former  found  no  friends,  and  Taylor 
continued  to  languish  under  a  suspicion  of  Pelagian 
error  which  affected  all  the  rest  of  his  career.  The 
private  correspondence  of  the  time,  even  more  than 
the  published  attacks,  proves  the  dismay  with  which 
the  chapter  on  original  sin  was  received.  An  appeal  was 
made  to  the  venerable  Sanderson,  as  the  most  dignified 
churchman  of  the  age,  to  refute  it ;  but,  as  a  curious 
letter,  now  in  the  Bodleian,  from  Sanderson  to  Barlow 
shows,  without  avail.  Sanderson  shrewdly  considered 
that  "in  these  times  of  so  much  distraction,  as  little 
notice  should  be  taken  of  differences  amongst  ourselves 
as  is  possible."  Moreover,  Taylor,  who  usually  for- 
warded presentation  copies  of  his  works  to  Sanderson 
as  soon  as  they  appeared,  had  been  careful  not  to 
send  the  Unurn  Necessarium  to  that  Bishop,  who,  as 
late  as  September  25,  1656,  had  not  so  much  as  seen  it. 
Others  were  not  so  discreet  as  Sanderson.  Dr.  Peter 
Samwayes,  writing  apparently  to  Sancroft,  declares 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  125 

in  an  unpublished  letter  that  he  "  values  not  what 
Dr.  Taylor  says  unless  it  be  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,"  and  urges  a 
general  repudiation  of  his  errors.  Warner  was  dread- 
fully distressed,  and  declared  that  "Pelagius  had 
puddied  the  stream  "  of  Taylor's  faith.  The  amiable 
and  indulgent  Sheldon  expostulated  with  Taylor  for 
his  "  folly  and  frowardness."  Never  was  such  a  con- 
sensus of  reprobation.  But  Taylor  remained  quite 
calm  under  the  storm,  and  theological  opinion  nowa- 
days will  record,  without  the  least  horror,  that,  in  his 
opinion,  though  not,  perhaps,  in  his  arguments,  he 
was,  as  usual,  far  ahead  of  his  age  in  liberality. 

He  occupied  the  close  of  his  imprisonment  at  Chep- 
stow  Castle  in  replying  to  the  objections  of  his  critics 
in  a  little  volume,  called  Deus  Justificatus,  in  which  he 
stood  to  his  guns,  and  charged  the  Anglican  divines 
with  having  borrowed  their  gloss  from  the  Presby- 
terians. This  reply  took  the  form  of  a  letter  to 
Christiana,  Dowager  Countess  of  Devonshire,  who 
appears  to  have  befriended  him  in  prison,  and  who 
perhips  sent  him,  with  a  gift  of  money,  a  request 
for  a  further  explanation  of  his  theory.  This  lady 
was  equally  interested  in  poetry  and  in  theology. 
She  kept  open  house  for  the  Royalist  wits  at 
Roehampton,  and  had  been  celebrated  in  verse  by 
Donne  in  her  girlhood,  and  by  Waller  in  her  middle 
life.  It  is  not  certain  in  what  manner  the  Deus  Justi- 
ficatus reached  the  public.  Royston  published  it  in 
1656,  not  only  without  the  author's  consent,  but 
apparently  without  Lady  Devonshire's  knowledge. 
In  a  letter,  Royston  says  that  Taylor  was  very  angry 
with  him,  arid  the  publisher  grovelled  with  excuses, 


126  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

for  Taylor  was  perhaps  the  most  valuable  author  on 
his  list.  We  may  doubt  whether  Taylor  was  really 
displeased  at  this  publication,  or  at  that  of  his  cor- 
respondence on  the  same  subject  with  Bishop  Warner. 
In  writing  from  Chepstow  Castle  in  September  1656 
Taylor  says  that  "  the  gentlemen  under  whose  custody 
I  am,  as  they  are  careful  of  their  charges,  so  are  they 
civil  to  my  person."  At  first  they  seem  to  have 
prevented  him  from  receiving  letters,  but  this  embargo 
was  presently  removed.  On  the  5th  of  November 
Sheldon  forgave  him  in  a  kind  letter,  in  which  he 
relieved  him  of  an  old  debt,  and  apparently  lent  him  a 
further  sum  which  enabled  him  to  regain  his  freedom. 
A  few  days  later  Taylor  has  left  his  prison,  but  he 
retires,  not  to  Golden  Grove,  which  was  to  see  him 
no  more,  but  to  Man-dinam,  whither,  apparently,  his 
children  had  already  found  an  asylum  with  Joanna 
Bridges.  Of  this  lady  little  is  known,  and  a  mystery 
hangs  over  her  birth.  The  egregious  Lady  Wray 
pretended  to  believe  that  Joanna  was  a  natural  child 
of  King  Charles  I. ;  the  estate  of  Man-dinam  was 
certainly  her  personal  property.  Whether  Taylor 
was  already  married  to  her  is  quite  unknown,  but 
his  extreme  poverty  in  the  winter  of  1655-56  seems 
to  preclude  the  idea.  She  was  probably  at  this  time 
merely  his  benefactress,  whose  hospitality  was  ex- 
tended to  him  as  a  celebrated  and  afflicted  clergyman, 
to  whom  any  Royalist  lady  of  means  would  be  happy 
to  offer  a  home.  Man-dinam,  which  was  her  property, 
was,  and  still  is,  a  small  country-house  on  an  estate 
two  miles  east  of  the  village  of  Llangadock.  It  is 
romantically  situated  on  a  hill  above  the  south  side 
of  the  Bran  River,  just  where  that  stream  narrows  its 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  127 

gorge  before  spreading  into  the  Vale  of  Towey;  it 
commands  a  fine  view  south  to  the  Rhiwiau  Hills  and 
the  Black  Mountain.  Man-dinam  is  ten  or  twelve  miles 
from  Golden  Grove,  by  the  road  which  passes  through 
Llandilo  and  Llangadock ;  it  remained  the  property 
of  Joanna  Bridges  after  she  became  Mrs.  Taylor,  and 
until  her  death. 

Lord  Carbery  had  by  this  time  married  again.  His 
new  wife  was  Lady  Alice  Egerton,  daughter  of  the 
first  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  who  had  died  in  1649.  It 
was  she  who,  as  a  child,  had  taken  parts  in  the  Comus 
and  in  the  Arcades  of  Milton,  and  to  whom,  on  account 
of  her  known  interest  in  the  art  of  music,  Lawes  dedi- 
cated his  Airs  and  Dialogues  in  1653.  There  is  evidence 
that  Jeremy  Taylor  tried  to  propitiate  her,  in  rather 
a  clumsy  way ;  for,  when  printing  a  third  edition  of 
The  Great  Exemplar,  he  cancelled  the  dedication  of  the 
third  book,  which  he  had  inscribed  to  the  first  countess, 
his  dear  friend,  and  inserted  a  letter  of  compliment  in 
its  place  to  the  stranger.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Alice,  Lady  Carbery,  took  any  interest  in  Taylor,  or 
extended  any  species  of  patronage  to  him,  and  perhaps 
she  was  not  pleased  at  the  divine's  reminder  that  she 
came  to  Golden  Grove  as  the  "  successor  to  a  very  dear 
and  most  excellent  person." 

Evelyn,  who,  as  has  been  said,  seems  to  have  had 
some  good  reason  for  being  unwilling  to  help  his  friend 
as  long  as  he  was  in  Chepstow  Castle,  now  hastened  to 
offer  counsel  and  aid.  He  advised  Taylor  to  come  at 
once  to  town,  but  the  reply  (on  the  5th  of  January  1656) 
was,  "  Sir,  I  know  not  when  I  shall  be  able  to  come  to 
London,  for  our  being  stripped  of  the  little  relics  of  our 
fortune  remaining  after  the  shipwreck  leaves  not  cordage 


128  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

or  sails  sufficient  to  bear  me  thither."  He  was  in  sorry- 
plight,  indeed,  for  some  one  now  "blew  the  coals, "and 
stirred  up  fresh  resentment  in  his  only  friend  among 
the  bishops,  Sheldon.  In  spite  of  his  wretched  poverty, 
however,  and  the  pressure  from  all  sides,  Taylor  per- 
sisted in  refusing  to  recant  his  views,  or  explain  them 
away.  But  Evelyn  had  now  interested  in  the  case 
Mr.  Thurland  (afterwards  Sir  Edward  and  a  baron  of 
the  Exchequer),  who  was  a  prominent  Royalist  lawyer, 
and  a  zealous  supporter  of  the  church.  A  proposition 
was  made  that  Taylor  should  undertake  some  work  of 
propaganda,  and  on  the  19th  of  January  he  is  expecting 
suddenly  to  go  into  Nottinghamshire  for  a  fortnight. 
As  he  had  no  money  of  his  own,  this  must  have  been 
a  professional  journey  paid  for  by  a  client,  in  all  pro- 
bability Thurland,  whose  country-house  was  G-amelton 
Hall,  in  Nottinghamshire.  Nothing  seems  to  have  been 
arranged  at  once,  and  it  was  a  very  dangerous  time, 
for  there  was  a  recrudescence  of  persecution,  and 
Cromwell  was  showing  renewed  severity  to  the  clergy. 
Two  months  later  Evelyn  is  alarmed  with  "  apprehen- 
sions" of  Taylor's  "danger,"  an  alarm  which  presently 
subsides  under  some  report  of  a  fortunate  nature. 
But  "  the  daily  sacrifice  is  ceasing,  and  the  exercise  of 
[sacerdotal]  functions  is  made  criminal,  and  the  light 
of  Israel  is  quenched."  But  "  Julianus  Redivivus  can 
shut  the  schools,  indeed,  and  the  temples,  but  he  cannot 
hinder  our  private  intercourses  and  devotions,  where 
the  breast  is  the  chapel  and  our  heart  is  the  altar." 
Then  follows  a  little  period  of  repose,  when  the  eye 
of  the  accuser  seems  to  be  removed  from  our  divine, 
and  we  find  him  enjoying  easy  social  intercourse  with 
the  excellent  Evelyn  and  his  friends. 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  129 

Evelyn  carried  his  confessor  off  to  Sayes  Court, 
where  on  the  12th  of  April  the  house-party  comprised, 
besides  Taylor,  two  of  the  most  eminent  living  men 
of  science,  Robert  Boyle,  the  natural  philosopher,  and 
John  Wilkins,  Warden  of  Wadham,  who  was  just 
about  to  marry  Cromwell's  sister  Robinia.  The 
acquaintance  of  Wilkins,  who,  although  on  the  popular 
side,  was  anxious  to  propitiate  the  distressed  clergy 
and  to  lighten  their  burdens,  must  have  been  par- 
ticularly valuable  to  Taylor  at  this  juncture.  Wilkins 
and  Evelyn  were  now  extremely  intimate,  while  the 
new  relation  of  the  latter  with  Taylor  was  increasing 
Evelyn's  zeal  for  the  Anglican  form  of  religion. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  examine  a  bibliographical 
crux  which  has  greatly  puzzled  Jeremy  Taylor's 
biographers,  and  is  of  some  vital  importance.  If  we 
were  to  decide  that  the  Auxiliary  Beauty  is  a  genuine 
work  of  Taylor,  we  should  be  obliged  to  modify  our 
estimate  of  his  character  in  some  curious  particulars. 
In  the  course  of  the  agitated  year  1656  Royston 
published  a  small  anonymous  volume,  entitled  A  Dis- 
course of  Auxiliary  Beauty,  or  Artificial  Handsomeness. 
In  Point  of  Conscience  between  Two  Ladies.  This  is  in 
fact  a  treatise  in  defence  of  the  use  of  cosmetics,  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  two  persons  of  quality, 
the  one  an  austerely  Puritanic  lady,  "a  severe 
censurer  of  all  extern  helps  to  beauty,"  the  other  an 
orthodox  churchwoman  of  a  more  modern  type,  who 
claims  the  right,  as  a  Christian  woman,  of  repairing 
by  the  use  of  rouge  and  similar  appliances  the  ravages 
of  her  complexion.  The  Puritan  makes  a  very  feeble 
resistance,  and,  although  she  produces  "a  black  and 
ponderous  cloud  of  witnesses,"  she  is  borne  down  by 

I 


130  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  tide  of  arguments  and  instances  poured  forth  by 
her  opponent.  The  line  of  defence  is  briefly  this,  that 
no  one  objects  to  the  restoration  of  the  teeth  or  even 
the  hair  by  artificial  means;  for  instance,  we  may 
"use,  if  we  list,  a  crystal,  painted  eye,"  and  give  no 
offence  to  the  most  precise.  The  cosmeticist  asks,  in 
triumph,  "When  was  your  ladyship  scandalised  with 
any  grave  and  sober  matron  because  she  laid  out  the 
combings  or  cuttings  of  her  own  hair  or  others'  more 
youthful  hair,  when  her  own,  now  more  withered  and 
autumnal,  seemed  less  becoming  to  her  ? "  Why,  then, 
be  so  pedantic  as  to  object  to  a  touch  of  ceruse  on  the 
faded  cheek  1 

Quite  early  there  arose  a  legend  that  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  connected  with  this  somewhat  ingenious  piece  of 
special  pleading.  It  was  brought  out  by  Taylor's 
publisher,  and  in  1662  a  second  edition  of  it  appeared 
with  the  initials  "  J.  T.,  D.D."  on  the  title-page,  initials 
which  Taylor  himself  had  used  in  publishing  his  own 
avowed  secular  production,  the  Discourse  of  Friendship. 
This  was  five  years  before  his  death,  and  we  have  no 
evidence  that  he  took  any  steps  to  deny  the  impeach- 
ment ;  it  is  true  that  he  had  left  London  at  the  time, 
and  was  in  Ireland.  In  the  third  edition  the  attribu- 
tion to  "a  late  learned  bishop"  was  more  explicit  still, 
and  the  work  continues  to  figure  in  our  bibliographical 
catalogues  of  Taylor's  works.  Meanwhile  Anthony  a 
Wood  had  included  the  Auxiliary  Beauty  in  a  list  of 
the  writings  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  while,  finally,  White 
Kennett,  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  also  attributed  it  to 
him.  This  evidence  of  Kennett's  merely  shows  that 
after  the  Restoration  it  was  general  subject  of  gossip 
that  Taylor  had  composed  this  discourse.  Such  is  the 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  131 

external  eridence,  and  if  it  collected  around  a  work 
which  was  in  harmony  with  Taylor's  character  and 
bore  evidence  of  his  style,  it  must  be  confessed  that  it 
could  hardly  be  resisted. 

But  in  this  case  internal  evidence  is  overwhelming 
in  the  other  scale  of  the  balance.  In  the  first  instance, 
if  we  turn  to  the  treatise  itself  we  find  the  publisher 
making  a  definite  statement.  The  MS.  was  brought  to 
him,  he  says,  anonymously;  but,  "of  this  discourse, 
as  I  am  certainly  informed,  a  woman  was  not  only  the 
chief  occasion,  but  the  author  and  writer."  Every- 
thing in  the  body  of  the  tract  supports  this  view.  It 
is  an  example  of  the  kind  of  picturesque,  audacious 
writing  which  women  were,  at  that  moment  in  the 
history  of  our  literature,  beginning  to  introduce,  and 
of  which  there  had  already  been .  several  striking 
examples.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  theology  in 
it,  especially  towards  the  end,  where  two  Puritan 
books  of  the  reign  of  James  I.,  Downham's  Christian 
Warfare  and  Perkins's  Cases  of  Conscience,  are  carefully 
controverted  so  far  as  they  forbid  the  use  of  cosmetics. 
Some  of  Taylor's  pet  phrases  are  introduced,  not,  how- 
ever, as  he  would  use  them  himself,  but  as  a  lady  who 
had  attended  his  ministrations  might  be  expected  to 
repeat  them.  Taylor  may  be  referred  to  as  "a  witty 
and  eloquent  preacher  whom  we  both  heard  at  Oxford. " 
Examples  of  what  may  be  called  the  pseudo-Taylorian 
manner  may  easily  be  found ;  for  instance,  the  Cosmetic 
Lady  speaks  of  "persons  who  sometimes  appear 
pallidly  sad,  as  if  they  were  going  to  their  graves, 
otherwhiles  with  such  a  rosy  cheerfulness,  as  if  they 
had  begun  their  resurrection."  This  is  a  conscious  or 
unconscious  parody  of  Taylor's  style,  but  no  one  who 


132  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

is  accustomed  to  his  phrases  will  mistake  it  for  the 
genuine  thing.  Even  more  hopelessly  unlike  is  the 
attitude  of  the  writer,  her  pious  levity,  her  lack  of 
all  real  spirituality,  her  superficial  unction  in  making 
the  best  of  both  worlds.  Finally,  all  the  external 
evidence  which  could  be  produced  would  fail  to  per- 
suade us  that  Jeremy  Taylor  wrote,  especially  in  the 
sad  and  troubled  year  1656,  pert  sentences  of  which 
the  following  is  a  very  fair  example,  where  the  author, 
after  saying  that  the  clergy  had  objected  to  tobacco, 
remarks  that  now  they  have  generally  taken  it  to 
themselves,  "fancying  at  last  that  they  never  had 
more  devout  meditations  or  sharp  inventions  than 
those  begotten  by  a  pipe  of  good  tobacco,  which  now 
perfumes  their  clothes,  their  books,  their  studies,  and 
their  sermons  " ;  and  this,  not  in  reproof,  but  in  sheer 
levity. 

It  would  be  pitiful  to  take  this  satyr  for  our 
Hyperion,  yet  there  persists  in  the  mind  a  feeling  that 
Taylor  must  have  been  in  some  way  concerned  with 
the  Auxiliary  Beauty  for  so  strenuous  a  legend  to 
connect  him  with  it.  There  is  every  likelihood  that 
the  title  is  his.  In  my  own  mind  the  probable  issue 
is  that  Taylor  was  intrusted  with  the  MS.,  perhaps 
against  his  will,  by  some  great  lady  in  the  orthodox 
camp,  whose  request  that  he  would  submit  it  to 
Royston  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  refuse.  Such  a 
lady  might  very  probably  be  Christiana,  Countess  of 
Devonshire,  a  blue-stocking,  an  ardent  churchwoman, 
a  relic  of  the  old  Oxford  days,  and  a  frequenter  of  the 
worldly  wits.  She  was  an  admirer  of  Taylor,  she  had 
lately  made  him  a  debtor  by  her  benevolence,  and  for 
all  her  formal  piety,  she  was  nothing  of  a  precisian. 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  133 

If  we  suppose  Lady  Devonshire  making  the  request,  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  Taylor  could  possibly  decline  to 
submit  her  MS.  to  Royston,  and  if  she  went  further 
and  asked  him  to  read  it  and  even  to  revise,  he  would 
find  in  it  nothing  to  which  he  could  take  any  direct 
objection.  The  present  writer  must,  however,  endorse 
Heber's  opinion,  and  say  that  he  little  cares  who  may 
have  written  the  Auxiliary  Beauty,  "provided  it  does 
not  pass  for  Taylor's."  The  difficulty,  however,  still 
remains  that  Taylor  did  not  deny  the  authorship  in 
his  lifetime. 

The  exact  business  which  attracted  Taylor  to 
London  in  the  early  months  of  1656  is  nowhere  pre- 
cisely stated,  but  it  was  connected  with  Mr.  Thurland, 
and  it  was  of  a  confidentially  ecclesiastical  character. 
The  jealousy  of  the  government  and  the  watchful  zeal 
of  Cromwell's  myrmidons  well  account  for  the  secrecy 
which  was  preserved.  But  Taylor  was  evidently 
engaged  in  some  agency  which  aimed  at  keeping  up 
communication  between  the  ejected  bishops  and  their 
clergy.  On  the  6th  of  May  Evelyn  brought  a  young 
French  Sorbonnist,  M.  Le  Franc,  who  was  an  Anglican 
convert,  "to  converse  with  Dr.  Taylor,"  who  was  much 
pleased  with  him,  and  recommended  him  to  a  divine 
whom  Evelyn  calls  "the  Bishop  of  Meath."  This  is  a 
slip  of  the  pen,  for  the  deprived  Bishop  of  Meath  had 
long  been  dead,  and  none  other,  of  course,  could  be 
appointed  to  the  vacant  see,  until  the  Restoration. 
Whoever  the  prelate  was,  he  was  "  very  poor  and  in 
great  want,"  and  only  too  glad  to  get  the  fees,  which 
Evelyn  paid,  with  the  exclamation,  "  To  that  necessity 
are  our  clergy  reduced ! "  In  July  Mr.  Thurland's 
"kindnesses"  make  it  possible  that  Taylor  will  be 


134  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

able  to  settle  in  or  near  London,  which  he  would  do  at 
once,  if  only  he  were  not  "  hindered  by  my  res  angusta 
domi."  He  is  waiting  to  see  the  Deus  Justificatus 
published,  and  then  hopes  to  come  to  a  definite  under- 
standing with  Mr.  Thurland. 

We  have  heard  nothing  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  family 
since  the  death  of  his  wife  in  1651.  It  appears  that 
his  mother-in-law,  Mrs.  Langsdale,  formed  part  of  his 
household  at  Golden  Grove,  having  doubtless  come  to 
take  charge  of  his  motherless  children.  A  letter  dated 
November  24,  1653,  written  to  his  brother-in-law,  "at 
his  apothecary's  house  in  Gainsborough,"  exemplifies 
the  writer's  tenderness.  Edward  Langsdale  has  been 
dangerously  ill,  but  Taylor  had  not  had  the  heart  to 
alarm  his  mother,  until  news  came  of  the  patient's 
recovery,  when  she  could  be  "  troubled  and  pleased  at 
the  same  time."  He  was  a  kind  and  solicitous  parent, 
cultivating  towards  his  children  "sweetness  of  con- 
versation, affability,  frequent  admonitions,  all  significa- 
tions of  love  and  tenderness,  care  and  watchfulness." 
After  they  had  lost  their  mother,  he  redoubled  his 
solicitude,  and  was  more  than  ever  "pitiful  and  gentle, 
complying  with  all  their  infirmities."  But  now,  just 
at  the  moment  when  he  was  broken  in  fortune  and 
uprooted  from  his  resting-place,  he  was  to  be  most 
cruelly  afflicted  in  his  tenderest  feelings.  Early  in 
July  1656  a  little  son  died, — "A  boy,"  says  his  father 
in  writing  to  Evelyn,  "  that  lately  made  us  very  glad, 
but  now  he  rejoices  in  his  little  orb,  while  we  think 
and  sigh  and  long  to  be  as  safe  as  he  is."  But  there 
was  worse  in  store  for  him. 

Early  in  1657  there  broke  out  an  epidemic  of  small- 
pox at  Man-dinam,  and  "  two  sweet  hopeful  boys  "  of 


rv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  136 

Jeremy  Taylor's  were  among  the  victims.  He  had 
now,  of  five  sons,  but  one  surviving,  Charles,  who  was 
to  die  a  few  days  before  his  father  in  1667.  The  sons 
who  died  in  1657  have  been  spoken  of  as  "young 
men,"  but  the  elder  of  them  could  not  have  been  more 
than  fourteen  years  of  age.  The  blow  to  their  father 
was  overwhelming;  "I  shall  tell  you,"  he  writes  to 
Evelyn,  "that  I  have  passed  through  a  great  cloud 
which  hath  wetted  me  deeper  than  the  skin."  His 
sorrow  was  so  bitter  that  it  rendered  him  "an  object 
of  every  good  man's  pity  and  commiseration."  He 
could  think  of  nothing  else,  and  had  to  beg  pardon  of 
Thurland  for  neglecting  his  business  and  failing  to 
reply  to  his  letters.  At  length,  about  Easter,  he  shook 
off  his  depression,  and  determined  to  leave  Wales  for 
good.  Rust  says  that  the  loss  of  his  sons  so  sensibly 
affected  his  spirits,  that  he  could  no  longer  endure  to 
live  in  the  place  where  they  had  been.  He  came  up 
to  London  and  settled  in  secret,  doubtless  under 
Thurland's  protection.  Jeremy  Taylor  now  withdraws 
for  a  while  beneath  a  dense  cloud,  through  which  we 
perceive  no  more  light  than  is  given  us  by  the  state- 
ment that  "he  officiated  in  a  private  congregation  of 
loyalists,  to  his  great  hazard  and  danger."  As  the 
year  proceeded,  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  Anglican 
public  worship  became  insurmountable.  In  August 
Evelyn  notes  that  for  the  first  time  the  Church  has 
been  "reduced  to  a  chamber  and  a  conventicle,  so 
sharp  is  the  persecution,"  and  zealous  Christians  met  in 
private  houses.  Even  then  they  were  liable  to  be 
disturbed  by  sudden  raids  of  soldiers,  who  dispersed 
the  worshippers  with  their  muskets.  In  this  sorrowful 
condition  the  godly  were  thrust  back  upon  contempla- 


136  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

tion  and  reverie,  and  from  the  suffering  Church  of 
England  there  arose  a  murmur  of  resignation,  and  a 
song  of — 

"  O  crux  ave  spes  unica 
Hoc  passionis  tempore  : 
Auge  piis  justitiam, 
Reisque  dona  veniam." 

Taylor's  patience  had  sustained  the  burden  of  all  the 
attacks  which  had  been  made  upon  it,  when  it  suddenly 
gave  way  beneath  a  straw.  A  certain  bitter  Puritan 
divine,  Henry  Jeanes  by  name,  was  rector  of  Chedzoy 
in  Somerset.  He  was  a  provocative  disputant,  dab- 
bling much  in  printers'  ink,  and  "pecking  and  hewing 
continually  at  logic  and  physics."  On  a  summer's  day, 
a  friend  of  his  came  out  from  Bridgwater  to  visit 
Jeanes;  this  gentleman,  Mr.  T.  C.,  was  a  very  ardent 
admirer  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  He  sang  his  praises  so 
loudly  that  Jeanes,  who  had  begun  by  assenting,  and 
by  acknowledging  Taylor's  "admirable  wit,  great 
parts,  quick  and  elegant  pen,  abilities  in  critical  learn- 
ing, and  profound  skill  in  antiquity,"  felt  obliged  to 
remark  what  a  pity  it  was  that  Taylor  held  erroneous 
ideas  on  various  points,  and  particularly  on  the  subject 
of  original  sin.  A  copy  of  the  Deus  Jitstificatus 
happened  to  lie  on  the  window-sill  of  the  rectory  at 
Chedzoy,  and  the  friends  began  to  turn  over  its  pages. 
When  Jeanes,  thoroughly  exasperated,  had  called  the 
book  a  mass  of  gross  nonsense  and  blasphemy,  T.  C. 
became  scandalised,  refused  to  argue  any  more,  and 
announced  that  he  should  lay  Jeanes's  objections  before 
Jeremy  Taylor  himself.  Jeanes  agreed,  but  insisted 
on  writing  out  those  objections  in  a  letter ;  which  was 
duly  forwarded.  To  this  Taylor  made  a  stubborn 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  137 

reply,  and  Jeanes,  now  quite  in  his  element,  flung 
himself  into  the  fray.  Taylor  was  full  of  troubles  and 
anxieties  at  the  time,  and,  as  he  wrote  to  the  Matchless 
Orinda,  "so  pushed  at  by  herds  and  flocks  of  people 
that  follow  anybody  that  whistles  to  them,  or  drives 
them  to  pasture,  that  I  am  grown  afraid  of  any  truth 
that  seems  chargeable  with  singularity."  His  replies 
to  Jeanes's  attacks  show  his  irritability  by  their 
violence  and  roughness.  Jeanes,  who  was  engaged  in 
fighting  Hammond  in  1657,  did  not  print  the  corre- 
spondence with  Taylor  until  1660,  when  he  brought  it 
out  in  a  little  quarto,  and  also  published  a  volume 
called  Original  Righteousness,  which  was  a  venomous 
diatribe  against  Taylor.  It  is  to  be  feared  that,  in 
delaying  the  publication  of  his  attacks  until  the 
Restoration,  Jeanes  was  acting  maliciously.  Taylor 
took  no  further  notice  of  him. 

In  May  of  this  year  a  plan  which  Evelyn  had  long 
entertained  of  a  subscription  for  the  support  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  seems  to  have  been  carried  out.  Several 
wealthy  Royalists,  "  sensible  of  this  opportunity  to  do 
God  and  their  country  an  acceptable  service,"  guaran- 
teed an  annual  salary,  in  return  for  which  he  was  to 
preach  in  private  houses,  administer  the  communion, 
and  perform  other  priestly  offices  confidentially,  with- 
out attracting  the  notice  of  the  authorities.  An  ex- 
tremely grateful  and  loving  letter  from  Taylor  (May 
15)  testifies  to  the  relief  which  this  arrangement 
gave  to  his  anxious  care.  His  whole  prospect,  which 
had  been  very  dark  for  the  past  three  years,  now 
sensibly  brightened,  and  we  see  the  effect  in  the  gay 
and  graceful  composition  which  proceeded  next  from 
his  pen.  In  the  month  of  June  he  finished  and  sent 


138  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

to  press  his  beautiful  Discourse  of  Friendship,  which 
appeared  before  the  summer  of  1657  reached  its  close. 
All  through  this  year  the  references  to  Evelyn  are 
numerous,  and  we  find  Taylor  frequently  going  down 
to  Sayes  Court  for  a  burial  or  a  christening,  to  confirm 
the  faith  of  the  residents,  or  simply  to  be  himself 
refreshed  by  his  host's  liberal  and  graceful  hospitality. 
At  what  date  Jeremy  Taylor  formed  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Orinda  is  uncertain.  That  eminent  lady,  whose 
real  name  was  Mrs.  Katherine  Philips,  had  come  to 
South  Wales  in  1647,  in  her  seventeenth  year,  as  the 
wife  of  a  Royalist  gentleman,  the  owner  of  Cardigan 
Priory.  One  of  her  pieces  is  a  greeting  to  the  third 
Countess  of  Carbery  on  her  marriage;  but  with  this 
exception  her  curious  and  tantalising  collection  of  very 
personal  poems  does  not  connect  her  with  the  little 
group  of  friends  at  Golden  Grove.  Mrs.  Philips  is 
supposed  to  have  adopted  the  name  of  Orinda  in  1651, 
when  she  began  to  collect  around  her  at  Cardigan  a 
Society  of  Friendship,  to  which  men  were  admitted, 
but  which  mainly  consisted  of  women.  Orinda  was 
not  pretty,  but  she  was  extremely  animated,  witty, 
and  agreeable.  She  became,  in  those  dark  days,  very 
easily  the  unquestioned  Muse  and  Sibyl  of  South 
Wales.  She  dubbed  the  members  of  her  society  by 
romantic  names,  such  as  Rosania,  Polycrite,  Poliarchus, 
and  Regina.  Under  these  pseudonyms  she  addressed 
her  friends,  but  particularly  the  ladies,  in  terms  of 
burning  enthusiasm.  Sometimes  she  inadvertently 
gave  the  same  name  to  two  persons  in  succession,  as 
when  she  called  a  Mr.  Francis  Finch  "the  excellent 
Palsemon,"  and  then  transferred  the  title,  as  "  the  noble 
Palaemon,"  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  with  this  result,  that  a 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  139 

long  poem  which  she  addressed  either  to  the  one  or  to 
the  other  "  on  his  incomparable  Discourse  of  Friendship  " 
has  been  supposed  to  belong  to  Finch,,  although  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  ever  wrote  anything  of 
the  kind. 

Although  she  lived  buried  in  the  country,  was  only 
twenty-six  years  of  age,  and  had  published  nothing, 
Orinda  was  already  celebrated.  She  was  introducing 
a  new  sort  of  sentimentality,  an  effusive  celebration  of 
friendship  between  persons  of  the  same  sex,  which  was 
quite  fresh  in  England,  and  which  attracted  a  great 
deal  of  attention.  Her  verses,  which  lack  colour  and 
music,  but  are  not  without  intellectual  strength,  were 
passed  eagerly  from  hand  to  hand.  Orinda  took  very 
high  ground ;  she  proposed  something  novel  in  philo- 
sophy and  in  morals,  and  she  wished  to  link  her  newly 
discovered  virtue  with  piety.  In  one  of  her  odes  to 
the  most  adored  of  her  companions,  Miss  Anne  Owen 
of  Landshipping,  she  had  exclaimed — 

"  Come,  my  Lucasia,  since  we  see 

That  miracles  man's  faith  do  move, 
By  wonder  and  by  prodigy 

To  the  dull,  angry  world  let 's  prove 
There 's  a  religion  in  our  love." 

Perhaps  the  dull,  angry  world  of  Cardigan  had 
challenged  this  assertion,  for  Orinda  laid  before  Jeremy 
Taylor  the  inquiry  :  "  How  far  is  a  dear  and  perfect 
friendship  authorised  by  the  principles  of  Christianity  1" 
His  reply  grew  into  what  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
of  his  minor  writings,  A  Discourse  of  the  Nature  and 
Offices  of  Friendship,  which  appeared  in  1657,  with  a 
dedication  to  "  the  most  ingenious  and  excellent  Mrs. 
Katharine  Philips." 


140  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

After  a  splendid  compliment  to  the  lady,  already 
"  so  eminent  in  friendships,"  Taylor  begins  to  examine 
the  theme  in  his  customary  lucid  way,  but  with  more 
melody  and  amenity  than  he  had  shown  in  his  writings 
for  several  years  past.  He  is  less  strenuous  in  this 
social  matter  than  he  is  accustomed  to  be  in  matters  of 
theology.  He  admits  that  the  New  Testament  does 
not  recognise  friendship  as  a  Christian  virtue,  in 
Orinda's  sense,  but  deals  with  charity  to  mankind, 
which  is  of  universal  warrant.  Yet  the  whole  may 
include  the  part,  and  as  our  graces  here  below  are  all 
imperfect,  we  must  make  the  best  we  can  of  those 
partial  and  fragmentary  instincts  which  drive  us  to 
cultivate  the  affections  of  certain  persons  whom  we 
isolate  from  the  mass  of  those  who  claim  our  universal 
charity.  In  theory  friendship  should  embrace  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  globe ;  but  our  hearts  are  finite,  and 
in  practice  our  love  is  limited. 

"Some  have  only  a  dark  day  and  a  long  night  from  [the 
sun],  snows  and  white  cattle,  a  miserable  life,  and  a  perpetual 
harvest  of  catarrhs  and  consumptions,  apoplexies  and  dead 
palsies.  But  some  have  splendid  fires  and  aromatic  spices, 
rich  wines  and  well-digested  fruits,  great  wit  r.nd  great  courage, 
because  they  dwell  in  his  eye,  and  look  in  his  face,  and  are 
the  courtiers  of  the  sun,  aud  wait  upon  him  in  his  chambers 
of  the  east.  Just  so  it  is  in  friendships.  Some  are  worthy, 
and  some  are  necessary.  Some  dwell  hard  by  and  are  fitted 
for  converse.  Nature  joins  some  to  us,  and  religion  combines 
us  with  others.  Society  and  accidents,  parity  of  fortune  and 
equal  dispositions  do  actuate  our  friendships  ;  which,  of  them- 
selves and  in  their  prime  disposition,  are  prepared  for  all  man- 
kind according  as  any  one  can  receive  them." 

From  this  Taylor  proceeds  to  indicate  how  strong, 
and  how  legitimate  a  part  must  be  taken  by  instinctive 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  141 

attraction  in  the  approach  to  one  another  of  those  who 
are  about  to  become  friends.  Many  qualities  enter 
into  the  alchymy  of  this  enchanting  state,  which  is 
"nothing  but  love  and  society  mixed  together."  He 
dwells  on  the  innocency  of  it,  the  subtlety,  the  refresh- 
ment and  cordial  which  it  gives  to  the  soul,  and  he 
bids  those  who  are  mutually  attracted  not  to  resist 
the  magnetism,  but  to  fly  to  one  another,  to  enjoy  the 
transports  of  sympathy  and  happiness,  only  being 
careful  not  to  be  so  infatuated  as  to  be  unable  to 
pass  judgment  on  the  moral  worth  of  the  proposed 
friend.  Charm  of  conversation,  unity  of  interests,  wit, 
physical  beauty  and  harmony  of  thought,  all  these  he 
admits  as  natural  and  proper  forces  leading  to  the 
mystery  of  friendship,  but  there  should  be  close  care 
taken,  before  the  two  souls  are  blinded  by  intimacy, 
that  none  of  these  is  at  work  alone,  but  that  the  soul 
of  him  towards  which  our  soul  leans  forward  is  pure 
and  honest.  He  will  not  make  a  man  his  privado,  his 
special  and  peculiar  friend,  unless  he  be  a  good  as  well 
as  an  attractive  one. 

"  I  choose  this  man  "  he  says  "  to  be  my  friend,  because  he  is 
able  to  give  me  counsel,  to  restrain  my  wanderings,  to  comfort 
me  in  my  sorrows.  He  is  pleasant  to  me  in  private  and  useful 
in  public.  He  will  make  my  joys  double,  and  divide  my  grief 
between  himself  and  me.  For  what  else  should  I  choose  him  ? 
For  being  a  fool  and  useless  ?  For  a  pretty  face  and  a  smooth 
chin  ?  I  confess  it  is  possible  to  be  a  friend  to  one  who  is 
ignorant  and  pitiable,  handsome  and  good-for-nothing,  that 
eats  well  and  drinks  deep.  But  he  cannot  be  a  friend  to  me, 
and  I  love  him  with  a  fondness  or  a  pity,  but  it  cannot  be  a 
noble  friendship." 

When  once  he  is  launched  on  a  disquisition  of  what 
friendship  is,  and  what  it  means  in  a  man's  private 


142  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

life,  as  a  source  of  comfort  and  refreshment,  his  elo- 
quence knows  no  bounds;  he  proceeds  in  a  kind  of 
golden  rapture,  the  fancies  clustering  round  him  and 
delaying  the  progress  of  his  argument.  Nowhere  is 
he  more  dithyrambic : — 

"  I  will  love  a  worthy  friend  that  can  delight  me  as  well  as 
profit  me,  rather  than  him  who  cannot  delight  me  at  all,  and 
profit  me  no  more.  Yet  I  will  not  weigh  the  gayest  flowers, 
or  the  wings  of  butterflies,  against  wheat ;  but  when  I  am  to 
choose  wheat,  I  may  take  that  which  looks  the  brightest.  I 
had  rather  see  thyme  and  roses,  marjoram  and  July  flowers, 
that  are  fair  and  sweet  and  medicinal,  than  the  prettiest  tulips 
that  are  good  for  nothing.  My  sheep  and  kie  are  better 
servants  than  race-horses  and  greyhounds,  and  I  shall  rather 
furnish  my  study  with  Plutarch  and  Cicero,  with  Livy  and 
Polybius,  than  with  Cassandra  and  Ibrahim  Bassa.  If  I  do 
give  an  hour  to  these  for  divertisement  or  pleasure,  yet  I  will 
dwell  with  them  that  can  instruct  me,  and  make  me  wise  and 
eloquent,  severe  and  useful  to  myself  and  others." 

He  refers  to  the  "immortal  abstracted  pure  friend- 
ships "  of  the  Greeks,  and  gratifies  the  pedantry  of  the 
Matchless  Orinda  by  quotations  from  Theognis  and 
Theocritus,  to  which  he  is  careful  to  append  translations 
of  his  own.  In  particular,  he  dwells  on  that  "com- 
mendation of  the  bravest  friendship"  which  he  finds 
in  the  twelfth  idyl,  the  'An-r/s,  of  the  Sicilian  poet,  part 
of  which  he  turns  into  English  neatly  enough : — 

"  They  loved  each  other  with  a  love 
That  did  in  all  things  equal  prove ; 
The  world  was  under  Saturn's  reign, 
When  he  that  loved  was  loved  again." 

It  is  interesting,  and  characteristic  of  the  exquisite  tact 
with  which,  in  all  his  works,  Taylor  employs  the  honey 
of  the  classics  without  a  touch  of  their  poison,  that  he 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  143 

passes  so  deftly  over  the  rather  delicate  ground  in- 
volved in  these  citations. 

But  all  his  reflections  have  been  leading  him  to 
glorify  the  friendship  of  man  with  man.  His  gallantry 
reminds  him  that  Orinda's  verses  celebrate  that  of 
woman  with  woman.  He  will  not  exclude  this  class 
of  emotion,  though  he  thinks  it  rarer,  and  apt  to  be 
more  trivial  and  on  a  lower  plane.  Alas  !  if  all  could 
share  the  transcendental  raptures  of  the  incomparable 
Mrs.  Philips,  then  indeed 

"  twin  souls  in  one  should  grow, 
And  teach  the  world  new  love, 
Redeem  the  age  and  sex,  and  show 
A  flame  Fate  dares  not  move." 

But  Taylor  hints  that  his  enthusiastic  young  corre- 
spondent has  achieved  this  redemption,  or  is  on  the 
high  road  to  achieve  it.  Her  example  will  show  that 
although  a  woman  is  not  likely  to  prove  so  good  a 
counsellor  as  a  wise  man,  she  may  be  no  less  tender 
and  no  less  loyal.  "  A  woman  can  love  as  passionately, 
and  converse  as  pleasantly,  and  retain  a  secret  as 
faithfully";  and  "she  can  die  for  her  friend  as  well 
as  the  bravest  Eoman  knight."  It  is  hard  if  Mrs. 
Philips  was  not  satisfied  with  this.  But  her  advocate 
must  guard  and  guide,  so  he  proceeds  to  draw  up  a 
code  of  laws,  or  maxims,  for  the  prudent  conduct  of 
friendship ;  and  then  sums  up  with  a  burst  of  emotional 
eloquence  not  to  be  surpassed  even  in  his  own 
writings : — 

"  As  an  eye  that  dwells  long  upon  a  star  must  be  refreshed 
with  greens  and  looking-glasses,  lest  the  sight  become  amazed 
with  too  great  a  splendour,  so  must  the  love  of  friends  some- 
times be  refreshed  with  material  and  low  caresses.  Lest  by 


144  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

striving  to  be  too  divine  it  become  less  human,  it  must  be 
allowed  its  share  of  both.  It  is  human  in  giving  pardon,  and 
fair  construction,  and  openness,  and  ingenuity,  and  keeping 
secrets.  It  hath  something  that  is  divine,  because  it  is 
beneficent,  but  much,  because  it  is  eternal." 

It  has  been  needful  to  dwell  at  some  length  on  the 
Discourse  of  Friendship,  not  merely  because  it  is  Taylor's 
sole  contribution  to  secular  literature,  but  because  it 
reveals  to  us  sides  of  his  character  and  temperament 
which  would  otherwise  be  unknown.  Sometimes,  as 
particularly  in  the  rather  harsh  letter  in  which  he 
reproves,  by  implication,  Evelyn's  pride  in  the  gardens 
and  buildings  of  Sayes  Court,  Jeremy  Taylor  faintly 
repels  us  by  an  excess  of  sanctity.  He  seems  a  little 
too  seraphic  for  human  nature's  needs.  He  was  a 
firm  and  jealous  guide  of  souls.  But  A  Discourse  of 
Friendship  survives  to  assure  us  of  his  geniality,  his 
acceptance  of  the  social  requirements  of  the  creature, 
and  of  his  own  participation  in  the  unselfish  joys  of 
life.  Here  he  is  neither  mystical,  nor  sacerdotal. 
Here  he  confesses  to  the  weakness  which  longs  for 
comfort,  to  the  depression  of  spirits  which  finds  a 
cure  in  friendly  sympathy,  to  the  attraction  which 
rests  on  no  logical  basis  but  is  an  instinct.  He  seems 
to  have  read,  and  to  have  accepted,  Montaigne's 
phrase  about  La  Boe'tie :  "  Je  1'aimais  parce.  que 
c'e"tait  lui,  parce  que  c'etait  moi."  The  other  writings 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  supply  us  with  ample  reason  to 
admire  him ;  the  Discourse  gives  us  authority  to  love 
him. 

Taylor  was  anxious  that  this  treatise  should  not 
pass  into  the  wrong  hands.  He  asked  Orinda,  if  she 
did  not  wish  to  publish  it  herself,  to  consign  the  MS. 


rv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  145 

to  the  keeping  of  Sir  John  Wedderburn.  But  she  had 
no  idea  of  wrapping  up  her  treasure  in  a  napkin ;  she 
published  it  immediately  in  folio.  Wedderburn,  who 
was  "reckoned  among  his  best  friends"  by  Jeremy 
Taylor,  was  the  great  Royalist  physician  of  the  day. 
He  had  attended  Charles  I.  and  he  was  useful  to 
Charles  II.  before  and  after  the  Restoration.  Although, 
or  perhaps  because,  he  made  no  secret  of  his  ardent 
Royalist  proclivities,  he  amassed  a  large  fortune  during 
the  Commonwealth.  Anthony  a  Wood  celebrates  the 
Scotch  doctor's  noble  hospitality  and  kindness  to  all 
who  were  learned  and  virtuous,  and  he  was  not  only 
Taylor's  intimate  friend,  but  he  attended  him  in  each 
of  his  illnesses. 

Although,  from  an  obscure  reference  in  a  letter 
from  Evelyn  to  the  Governor  of  the  Tower,  it  has  been 
conjectured  that  in  January  1657  Taylor  for  a  third 
time  suffered  brief  imprisonment,  his  position  on  the 
whole,  though  still  perilous,  was  now  less  uncomfort- 
able. We  hear  no  more  of  grinding  poverty;  his 
subscriptions  from  the  pious  sufficed  for  his  needs. 
English  churchmen  were  now  rigorously  deprived  of 
"the  priest's  power  and  external  act,"  but  persecution 
was  more  often  threatened  than  carried  out. 

In  May  1657  Taylor  collected  his  works  for  the  first 
time  in  a  substantial  folio  volume ;  he  continued  to  make 
efforts  to  publish  his  Ductor  Dubitantium,  and  as  Royston 
still  shrank  from  so  huge  an  undertaking,  he  proposed 
to  print  it  at  his  own  expense.  He  did  not  do  this,  but 
that  he  should  have  thought  of  doing  it  shows  that  he 
was  no  longer  pressed  for  money.  He  was  now  the 
most  popular  theologian  of  the  age,  but  he  wrote  little 
during  these  two  years.  He  probably  had  no  time  for 

K 


146  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

literature,  for  lie  was  amply  engaged  by  his  mysterious 
occupations. 

A  glimpse  of  Jeremy  Taylor  in  his  pastoral  capacity 
is  offered  us  by  his  sermon  preached  at  the  funeral  of 
Sir  George  Dalstone.  This  gentleman  was  a  member 
of  parliament  from  the  county  of  Cumberland,  who, 
being  troubled  by  vexatious  lawsuits,  had  given  up  the 
charge  of  his  estates  into  the  hands  of  his  son,  and  had 
come  up  to  London,  where  he  devoted  himself  entirely 
to  religion  and  philanthropy.  He  was  in  church  one 
day,  listening  to  the  discourse,  "for  he  was  a  great 
lover  of  sermons,"  when  he  was  attacked  by  a  paralytic 
seizure,  and,  being  very  old,  was  not  expected  to 
recover.  Jeremy  Taylor,  who  was  probably  the  very 
preacher  to  whom  he  had  been  listening,  was  hastily 
called  upon  to  attend  him  with  the  Holy  Sacrament ; 
it  does  not  appear  that  they  had  ever  spoken  to  one 
another  before.  But  Sir  George  Dalstone  did  not 
immediately  die,  and  during  his  last  illness  Taylor 
"often  visited  him,"  and  found  in  him  "a  very  quiet 
conscience."  His  decline  was  prolonged  much  beyond 
expectation,  and  through  the  course  of  it  Taylor  was 
greatly  edified  by  the  aged  knight's  serenity  and 
beautiful  attitude  of  readiness,  and  formed  a  very 
warm  attachment  to  him.  When  at  length  Sir  George 
Dalstone  died,  and  was  buried  on  the  28th  of  Sep- 
tember 1657,  Jeremy  Taylor  preached  an  unusually 
long  and  elaborate  sermon  at  the  funeral. 

The  nature  of  his  clerical  work  seems  to  have  been 
principally  consultative  rather  than  pastoral.  He  had 
a  special  charge  to  deal  with  persons  who  were  tempted 
to  change  their  religion,  in  particular,  to  join  the 
Church  of  Rome.  Some  of  his  confidential  letters  to 


iv.]  YEARS  OF  AFFLICTION  147 

great  ladies  on  points  of  conscience  and  delicate  family 
matters  have  been  preserved ;  one  of  them,  still  among 
the  Duke  of  Rutland's  MSS.  at  Belvoir,  is  addressed,  in 
1658,  from  Annesley  to  the  Countess  of  Rutland. 
These  letters  hint  at  the  personal  risk  Jeremy  Taylor 
runs  in  carrying  out  his  priestly  task.  He  writes,  for 
instance  in  1657,  "  I  bless  God  I  am  safely  arrived  where 
I  desired  to  be  after  my  unwilling  departure  from  the 
place  of  your  abode  and  danger."  This  is  very 
cryptic,  but  it  suggests  the  peril  which  attended  one 
whose  business  in  life  it  had  become  secretly  to  urge 
people  to  preserve  the  advantages  of  orthodox  doctrine. 
But  no  further  personal  inconvenience  seems  to  have 
attended  him,  until  in  1658  he  was  translated  to 
another  and  a  fatal  sphere  of  labour. 


CHAPTEE  V 

PORTMORE 
(1658-1661) 

Or  Edward,  the  third  viscount  (and  afterwards  first 
earl  of)  Conway,  not  much  is  preserved.  But  he  was  a 
pious  and  active  Irish  landlord,  devoted  to  the  Anglican 
church,  and  a  convinced  although  not  fanatical  loyalist. 
He  took  his  second  title  of  Lord  Killultagh  from  a 
district,  "the  woods  of  Ulster,"  in  the  south-western 
part  of  County  Antrim,  where  his  estates  were  bordered 
by  Lough  Neagh.  His  residence  was  called  Portmore, 
in  the  parish  of  Ballinderry;  it  was  a  magnificent 
house,  erected  by  the  first  viscount,  after  plans  executed 
by  Inigo  Jones,  and  here  Lord  Conway  resided  in 
great  state.  The  nearest  town  to  him  was  Lisburn,  or, 
as  it  was  then  called,  Lismagarry,  where  there  seems  to 
have  existed  a  collegiate  church,  in  which  the  vicar 
taught  divinity.  This  incumbent  was  a  Presbyterian 
(or  rather  what  was  styled  an  Independent),  but  part 
of  his  fees,  it  would  appear,  were  paid  by  Lord 
Conway  and  other  subscribers,  who  therefore  felt  at 
liberty  to  exercise  some  pressure  upon  him.  His  name 
was  Andrew  Weeke,  a  man  of  some  notable  force  of 
character,  who  had  been  minister  of  Lisburn  since 
1651.  The  attention  of  Lord  Conway  was  drawn 

148 


CHAP,  v.]  PORTMORE  149 

to  the  neglected  state  of  the  English  church  in  that 
part  of  Ireland,  and  he  formed  the  idea  of  inviting 
a  leading  churchman  over  to  Lisburn  to  keep  the 
nickering  lamp  of  Anglicanism  from  being  utterly 
extinguished. 

Having  consulted  Evelyn,  Lord  Conway  was  advised 
to  try  and  secure  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  in  May  1658  he 
wrote  to  propose  that  the  divine  should  accept  the 
position  of  assistant  lecturer  at  Lisburn.  Unfortun- 
ately, the  stipend  offered  was  so  inconsiderable,  that  it 
would  not  have  paid  for  the  expense  and  trouble  of 
moving  himself  and  his  family  to  Ireland.  Moreover, 
the  idea  of  becoming  a  teacher  under  the  disposal  of  a 
person  like  Andrew  Weeke,  who  held  views  on  church 
government  diametrically  opposed  to  his,  was  unwel- 
come to  Taylor.  He  therefore  desired  Evelyn  to  give 
his  thanks  to  Lord  Conway,  but  to  say  that  he  declined 
the  honour.  In  response  to  a  further  appeal,  offering 
fresh  inducements,  Taylor  asked  Major  George  Kaw- 
don,  Lord  Conway's  brother-in-law,  who  commanded 
the  garrison  in  Lisburn,  for  a  frank  account  of  the 
social  conditions  of  that  part  of  Ireland,  and  his  reply 
was  so  extremely  unfavourable  that  "it  discouraged 
him  and  all  his  friends  from  any  further  thought  of 
that  country."  Lord  Conway,  however,  had  thoroughly 
set  his  heart  on  securing  Taylor,  and  in  June  he  made 
a  third  attempt.  He  was  "  certain  that  [Taylor]  was 
the  choicest  person  in  England  appertaining  to  the 
conscience, ...  of  excellent  parts  and  an  excellent  life," 
and  he  was  determined  that  come  to  Ulster  he  should. 
However,  he  was  not  blind  to  the  difficulties,  and  he 
set  about  removing  them  on  a  large  scale.  As  he 
admitted  that  Taylor's  private  virtues  were  not  power- 


150  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

ful  enough  "to  purchase  his  quiet"  in  that  bigoted 
province,  Lord  Conway  took  infinite  pains  to  protect 
him.  He  secured  him,  through  William  Petty  and  Dr. 
Thomas  Harrison,  "a  purchase  of  land  at  great  advan- 
tage." Dr.  Thomas  Coxe,  afterwards  president  of  the 
College  of  Physicians,  was  induced  to  write  and  com- 
mend Taylor  "  very  passionately "  to  the  Irish  Chan- 
cellor. Taylor  was  invited  to  come  and  converse  with 
Lord  Conway  during  a  visit  the  latter  paid  to  Kensing- 
ton, and  in  all  possible  ways  was  urged  to  try  and 
smile  on  the  scheme.  Finally,  the  Lord  Protector  was 
induced  to  give  him  a  pass  and  a  protection  for  himself 
and  his  family,  under  his  sign-manual  and  privy  signet. 
The  difficulty  of  the  stipend  was  got  over,  by  the 
arrangement  that  he  and  his  family  were  to  occupy 
rooms  in  the  great  house  at  Portmore,  and  there  was, 
without  question,  a  salary  offered  as  chaplain  in  Lord 
Conway's  family. 

This  last  arrangement  was  against  the  law,  and  could 
not  be  discussed  in  writing.  No  doubt  it  was  broached 
when  Taylor  made  his  preliminary  visit  early  in  June 
1658.  He  yielded;  Lord  Conway  had  done  so  much 
that  it  would  have  been  ungracious  to  resist  any  further. 
The  viscount  triumphed  to  his  brother-in-law ;  he 
recounted  the  infinite  trouble  he  had  taken,  and  added, 
in  reference  to  his  success  with  Cromwell,  "  so  that  I 
hope  it  will  not  be  treason  to  look  upon  [Taylor]  and 
own  him."  Accordingly,  Jeremy  Taylor's  scruples 
were  removed,  and  before  the  summer  of  1658  closed, 
he  and  all  his  family  removed  from  London  to  Port- 
more,  to  an  asylum  under  the  hospitable  roof  of  Lord 
Conway,  who  seems  to  have  been  proud  of  his  company, 
and  always  delicately  solicitous  as  to  his  comfort  and 


v.]  PORTMORE  151 

safety.  The  quiet  and  repose  were  extremely  welcome 
to  our  author.  He  signs  one  of  the  very  few  letters 
of  this  period  "ex  amcenissimo  recessu  in  Portmore," 
"from  my  most  delightful  retreat."  He  left  it,  as  is 
supposed,  once  a  week,  to  deliver  his  lecture  in  Lisburn, 
which  was  but  six  Irish  miles  distant. 

The  only  ambition  Taylor  had  at  this  time  was  to  be 
let  alone,  to  be  undisturbed  in  his  retreat.  The  recom- 
mendations which  his  London  friends  had  made  on  his 
behalf  to  people  in  authority  at  Dublin  were  cunningly 
devised  to  achieve  this  object  In  the  first  place,  he 
was  assured  of  the  protection  of  "  the  Lord  Peepes,"  in 
whom  we  recognise  Sir  Eichard  Pepys,  who  had  been 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Ireland  since  1654,  and  in  contra- 
vention to  whose  wishes  no  serious  legal  step  could 
be  taken.  But  unfortunately  Pepys  died  on  the  2nd  of 
January  1659.  Before  coming  to  Ireland,  Jeremy  Taylor 
had  formed  what  now  proved  a  valuable  friendship  with 
the  eminent  Irish  orientalist,  Dr.  Dudley  Loftus,  who 
was  settled  in  Dublin  as  vicar-general  and  judge  of  the 
prerogative  court.  Loftus,  a  fine  scholar,  though  it  is 
said  rather  a  nighty  person,  stood  high  in  Cromwell's 
favour.  Very  important,  too,  was  the  protection  of  Dr. 
Thomas  Harrison,  who  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  regicide.  The  former  was  the  minister  of  a  dis- 
senting chapel  in  Dublin,  who  had  made  himself  very 
prominent  in  politics,  and  who  in  1657  went  over 
rather  ostentatiously  to  Henry  Cromwell's  party.  He 
was  rewarded  by  the  governor's  confidence,  and  his 
advice  was  constantly  asked  for  and  acted  upon.  He 
became  almost  a  court  chaplain  in  Dublin,  and  when  in 
1658  he  published  his  extremely  successful  manual  of 
piety  called  Topica  Sacra,  he  was  the  most  popular 


152  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

divine  in  Ireland.  This  was  a  very  valuable  friend  for 
Jeremy  Taylor  to  secure. 

But  among  them  all,  probably  none  was  so  practi- 
cally useful  as  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir  William)  Petty,  the 
great  statistician  and  engineer.  He  had  gone  over  to 
Ireland  in  1652,  and  had  at  once  taken  an  interest  in 
the  schemes  for  transplantation  and  the  redistribution 
of  land.  To  him  had  been  intrusted  the  famous 
"  Down  "  Survey  of  the  whole  of  Ireland,  and  the  map 
in  which  he  put  the  features  "  down "  remains  as  a 
monument  to  his  industry.  He  was  engaged  for  years 
in  delimiting  the  forfeited  estates  throughout  Ireland, 
and  he  had  unrivalled  opportunities  not  merely  of 
knowing  where  land  was  to  be  got,  but  of  enabling 
favoured  persons  to  secure  it  on  the  most  moderate 
terms.  It  is  likely  that  he  enabled  Taylor  to  buy  the 
farm  at  Magheralin,  which  he  "provided"  for  him  "at 
great  advantage,"  that  is  to  say,  for  very  little  money 
or  for  none  at  all.  Experienced  English  farmers  were 
extremely  welcome,  and  might  almost  be  bribed  to 
settle.  Magheralin  is  just  within  that  portion  of 
County  Down  in  which  there  were  specially  put  aside 
baronies  to  be  divided  among  the  disbanded  soldiers 
who  were  willing  to  settle.  There  can  be  little  ques- 
tion that  it  was  one  of  these  which  Petty  secured  for 
Jeremy  Taylor. 

One  friend  at  Dublin  whom  Taylor  seems  to  have  won 
for  himself,  since  this  was  one  who  was  careful  to  dis- 
play no  political  bias,  was  Dr.  John  Sterne,  Archbishop 
Ussher's  grand-nephew.  He  was  a  very  learned  man, 
a  great  doctor,  and  later  on  the  founder  of  the  Irish 
College  of  Physicians.  Sterne  was  certainly  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  persons  then  living  in  Ireland. 


v.]  PORTMORE  153 

Although  distinguished  in  science,  he  nourished  a  great 
fondness  for  theology,  and  this  was  the  side  of  his 
character,  no  doubt,  which  attracted  Taylor.  A  warm 
affection  sprang  up  between  them,  and  when  Sterne 
published  his  Thanatologia  in  1658,  Taylor  prefixed  to 
it  a  long  Latin  epistle  of  congratulation  and  com- 
pliment. In  1660  Taylor  was  able  to  be  of  service 
to  Sterne,  by  warmly  recommending  him,  as  a  man 
of  "  great  learning  and  skill  in  the  college  affairs,"  to 
Lord  Ormonde  for  a  senior  fellowship  at  Trinity  which 
was  at  the  disposal  of  the  chancellor. 

Portmore  is  ignored  by  the  guide-books,  and  its  very 
site  hardly  remembered  by  the  antiquaries,  but  in 
Jeremy  Taylor's  time  it  was,  as  has  been  said,  the 
most  magnificent  mansion  in  Ulster.  It  stood  on  the 
western  side  of  Lough  Beg,  a  circular  satellite  of 
the  vast  Lough  Neagh.  At  present  it  is  difficult  to 
find  the  remains  of  Portmore,  but  as  the  wanderer 
plashes  about  in  the  marshy  flats,  he  becomes  aware 
of  a  long  line  of  broken  brickwork  on  the  crest  of 
a  slight  eminence  looking  westward.  This  ridge,  with 
what  was  evidently  a  bowling-green  or  garden  in  front 
of  it,  descending  to  the  lake,  marks  the  direction  of  the 
great  terrace  which  rose  from  the  plans  of  Inigo  Jones 
soon  after  the  rebellion  of  1641.  Portmore  was  not 
only  a  noble  residence;  it  was  a  fortress  garrisoned 
against  the  Tories  of  the  west.  Where  now  the  eye 
perceives  nothing  but  a  low  harsh  horizon  of  grazing 
land  to  the  north  and  east,  in  Lord  Conway's  time  there 
lay  a  large  deer-park  of  oak-trees.  It  is  probable 
that  a  bridge,  all  traces  of  which  have  disappeared, 
conducted,  in  a  few  minutes  from  Portmore,  across 
the  brown  and  broad  trout-stream,  to  the  church  in 


154  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

which  Jeremy  Taylor  habitually  officiated.  To  reach 
the  latter  now  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  long,  circuitous 
route.  One  arrives  at  last  quite  suddenly  at  its 
impressive  desolation.  It  stands  high  on  an  artificial 
island  in  the  marshes,  with  a  shallow  moat  encircling 
it,  although  quite  close  to  the  banks  of  Lough  Beg, 
which  are  so  low  that  the  round  lake  looks  like  a 
brimming  cask  buried  in  the  soft  soil.  The  fragments 
of  the  church  are  covered  heavily  with  ivy,  and  a  loose 
hedge  of  seedling  larches  and  sweet-briar  enrings  them, 
while  here  and  there  great  cypresses,  relics,  it  is  pos- 
sible, of  the  Italian  gardens  of  Portmore,  soar  impres- 
sively in  the  wild,  bright  place,  where  there  has  long 
ceased  to  be  heard  any  other  sound  than  the  cries  of 
wildfowl.  From  up  among  these  ruins,  the  old  frag- 
mentary brickwork  of  Portmore  is  better  visible  than 
from  any  other  point,  and  imagination  may  here 
rebuild  the  vision  of  it  as  Jeremy  Taylor  saw  it  when 
he  arrived  in  1658,  sumptuous  and  elaborate,  with 
its  upper  windows  looking  towards  the  sunset  over 
Lough  Beg  to  the  melancholy  little  inland  ocean  of 
Lough  Neagh.  The  church  was  dismantled  by  Taylor 
himself,  when  he  fitted  up  his  new  chapel  in  Ballin- 
derry,  just  before  his  death.  Portmore,  after  being 
enlarged  in  1664,  lasted  scarcely  a  century  longer,  and 
was  pulled  down  in  1761  after  the  extinction  of  the 
Conway  peerage. 

Tradition  will  have  it  that  the  little  Sallegh  Island, 
or  isle  of  willows,  which  now  lies  a  few  hundred  yards 
out  in  Lough  Beg  directly  north  of  Portmore,  contained 
a  study  where  Jeremy  Taylor  loved  to  meditate.  It  has 
been  said  that  he  wrote  there  in  an  "arbour,"  which 
is  probably  a  mere  miscomprehension  of  his  phrase 


v.]  PORTMORE  155 

about  Portmore  itself,  that  it  was  his  "harbour"  or 
asylum.  At  present  Sallegh  Island,  a  tangled  raft 
of  osiers,  is  unapproachable,  and  looks  from  shore  as 
though  it  were  mere  marshland.  It  is  probable,  how- 
ever, that  while  Portmore  was  a-building,  there  was 
framed  a  little  fort  on  Sallegh,  and  Taylor  may  have 
fitted  up  a  study  there  afterwards.  In  the  old  (or 
western)  village  of  Ballinderry  are  one  or  two  tall 
warehouses,  which  probably  belong  to  Lord  Conway's 
time.  The  legend  that  Taylor  wrote  on  Ram's  Island, 
far  out  in  Lough  Neagh,  is  preposterous.  All  we  can 
safely  say  is,  that  he  and  his  family  occupied  a  suite 
of  rooms,  from  1658  to  1660,  in  one  of  the  wings  of 
Portmore,  and  that,  doubtless,  he  stole  away  from  the 
noise  of  the  great  house  to  the  islet  which  is  now 
sodden  with  rains,  and  to  the  church  which  is  now  two 
gables  of  crumbling  masonry. 

The  Presbyterian  ministers,  who  had  withdrawn 
from  persecution  to  Scotland,  had  come  back  to  their 
parishes  in  1653  and  1654.  They  were  particularly 
welcome  in  the  diocese  of  Down  and  Connor,  where 
they  found  a  powerful  patron  in  Lady  Clotworthy, 
mother  of  the  first  Lord  Massereene.  "This  poor 
church,"  says  Patrick  Adair,  had  [in  1654]  "a  new 
sunshine  of  liberty  of  all  ordinances,"  and  the  Presby- 
terians flourished  in  the  counties  of  Down  and  Antrim 
for  five  years.  They  were,  however,  vexed  by  the 
existence  of  the  Anabaptists  on  one  side  and  by  that 
of  Jeremy  Taylor's  Episcopal  friends  on  the  other,  and 
even  their  own  partial  historian  admits  that  they  were 
divided  amongst  themselves  by  "  some  jealousies  and 
animosities."  To  settle  these  internal  factions  and  to 
protect  themselves  against  external  enemies,  the  Pres- 


156  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

bytery  passed  what  was  called  "the  Act  of  Bangor," 
which  proved  extremely  consolidating,  and  enabled 
them  to  carry  out  a  detailed  policy  with  great  effec- 
tiveness. "Even  in  the  sight  and  to  the  angering  of 
their  adversaries,  the  old  Episcopal  party  and  the 
Anabaptists  and  other  sectaries,"  the  Presbyterians 
succeeded  in  getting  firm  hold  of  the  diocese.  They 
ruled  it,  indeed,  with  a  rod  of  iron,  tempered  only  by 
the  determination  of  Henry  Cromwell  to  prevent  all 
overt  acts  of  intolerance.  But  at  the  time  of  Jeremy 
Taylor's  arrival  in  Ireland,  the  attitude  of  the  Pres- 
byterians to  Churchmen  had  grown  as  offensive  as  fear 
of  Cromwell  would  permit  it  to  be.  Those  friends 
of  Taylor's  whose  names  have  been  recounted  were 
prominent  leaders  of  the  Cromwellian  party,  who 
were  in  favour  of  religious  liberty,  and  who  kept  the 
Presbyterians  in  check. 

But  three  or  four  months  after  Taylor's  arrival 
the  death  of  Oliver  Cromwell  (September  3,  1658) 
altered  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs.  From  having  en- 
joyed a  steady  authority,  the  party  of  Henry  Cromwell 
in  Ireland  immediately  became  "  staggering  and  reel- 
ing." The  Presbyterians  in  Down  and  Antrim  lost  no 
time  in  taking  advantage  of  the  change,  and  they 
adopted  the  double  policy  of  intriguing  for  the  king's 
recall  and  of  making  the  position  of  the  Episcopalians 
untenable.  When,  later  on,  we  are  confronted  with  the 
undeniable,  and  much  to  be  regretted,  harshness  of 
Taylor  as  a  bishop,  it  is  only  fair  to  remember  that  the 
year  1659  was  made  intolerable  to  him  by  the  enmity 
which  he  met  with  from  the  surrounding  ministers.  It 
is  almost  certain  that  the  departure  of  Henry  Cromwell 
from  Dublin  was  the  signal  of  Taylor's  dismissal  from 


v.]  PORTMORE  157 

his  lectureship  at  Lisburn.  He  withdrew  altogether  to 
his  retreat  within  the  park  of  Portmore,  and  even  there 
it  would  seem  that  he  was  not  safe  from  the  insults  of 
the  predominant  party.  He  kept  close  all  the  winter  of 
1658-59,  engaged  in  finishing  Ductor  Dubitantiwn,  which 
he  hoped  at  length  to  see  in  the  printer's  hands,  although 
as  a  matter  of  fact  its  publication  was  again  delayed. 
Colonel  Hill,  the  strongest  supporter  of  Episcopacy  in 
the  county  of  Down,  occasionally  entertained  him  at 
his  house  in  Hillsborough,  and  this  seems  to  have 
drawn  the  particular  attention  of  the  Presbytery  to 
him.  A  peculiarly  busy  fanatic,  of  the  name  of 
Tandy,  who  divided  his  hostile  attentions  between  the 
Anabaptists  and  the  Churchmen,  became  especially 
offensive.  In  June  1659  Taylor  wrote  Lord  Conway, 
who  was  in  London,  a  letter  which  "  almost  broke  his 
his  heart."  Tandy  had  denounced  Taylor  to  the  Lord 
Deputy  and  the  council  for  illegal  practices,  and  par- 
ticularly for  having  baptized  a  child  with  the  sign  of 
the  cross.  Taylor  was  deeply  alarmed,  and  expected 
to  be  sent  to  prison.  Lord  Conway  wrote  to  Colonel 
Hill,  entreating  him  to  protect  the  doctor  so  far  as  his 
ability  went,  and  forwarded  a  sum  of  money  for  his  legal 
defence.  Taylor  was  in  despair ;  "I  fear  my  peace  in 
Ireland  is  likely  to  be  short,"  he  wrote  to  Evelyn,  "  for 
a  Presbyterian  and  a  madman  have  informed  against 
me  as  a  dangerous  man  to  their  religion."  He  hoped 
to  be  able  to  escape  to  England,  although  he  would 
fain  stay  where  he  is,  "if  I  can  enjoy  my  quietness 
here." 

The  persecution,  however,  grew  more  intense,  and 
Taylor  passed  a  distressing  summer.  On  the  llth  of 
August  his  calamities  culminated  in  his  arrest,  at  the 


158  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

instance  of  Thomas  Herbert,  who  directed  Colonel 
Bryan  Smith,  governor  of  Carrickfergus,  forthwith  at 
sight  to  "  cause  the  body  of  Dr.  Jeremiah  Taylor  to  be 
sent  up  to  Dublin  under  safe  custody,  to  the  end  that 
he  may  make  his  personal  appearance  before  the  said 
Commissioners  to  answer  unto  such  things  as  shall  be 
objected  against  him  in  behalf  of  the  Commonwealth." 
We  are  told  that  the  agitation  of  this  arrest  and  the 
subsequent  enforced  journey  to  Dublin  threw  him  into 
a  serious  illness ;  but  this  is  perhaps  an  echo  of  a  later 
imprisonment.  Dublin,  however,  was  not  the  County 
Down ;  the  zeal  of  the  Presbyterians  was  not  greatly 
appreciated  in  the  capital,  and  here  Taylor  found  a 
friend  who  had  survived  the  fall  of  the  Cromwell  party, 
Sir  Matthew  Thomlinson,  a  leader  of  the  military 
faction,  whose  attitude  to  Irish  politics  was  looked 
upon  so  unfavourably  by  the  English  Parliamentarians 
that  an  effort  was  now  made  to  impeach  him.  For 
a  brief  moment  Thomlinson,  who  was  well  affected  to 
Jeremy  Taylor,  was  one  of  the  most  influential  persons 
in  Ireland. 

Taylor  seems  not  to  have  met  with  any  harsh 
treatment  in  Dublin,  and  he  returned  to  Portmore, 
where  he  resumed  his  quiet  life.  But  relations  with 
England  were  disturbed;  the  postal  system  was 
entirely  dislocated,  and  he  was  left  in  anxiety  about 
the  condition  of  affairs.  A  reassuring  letter  from 
Evelyn,  sent  off  on  the  23rd  of  July,  was  not  delivered 
at  Portmore  until  the  1st  of  November.  Taylor  was 
now,  a  second  time,  sent  for  to  Dublin  by  the  Commis- 
sioners, "  in  the  worst  of  our  winter  weather,"  and  he 
"found  the  evil  of  it  so  great,  that  in  my  going  I 
began  to  be  ill,"  and  "in  my  return,  had  my  illness 


v.]  PORTMORE  159 

redoubled  and  fixed,"  so  that  it  was  not  until  February 
1660  that  his  health  was  restored.  He  quite  gave  up 
all  idea  of  remaining  in  Ireland,  harassed  as  he  was  by 
the  malevolence  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  and  he 
only  waited  for  better  weather  "by  God's  permission 
to  return  to  England."  It  was  the  darkest  hour  before 
the  dawn.  All  this  has  been  very  slightly  touched 
upon  by  those  who  have  been  only  too  ready  to 
emphasise  Taylor's  subsequent  rigour  to  the  Presby- 
terians of  his  diocese.  Without  ceasing  to  regret  that 
he  did  not  see  his  way  to  treat  them,  in  the  hour  of  his 
authority,  with  greater  indulgence,  we  must  insist  on 
pointing  out  how  very  offensive  they  had  been  to  him, 
and  to  his  fellow-churchmen,  when  Presbyterianism 
seemed  to  be  enjoying  a  settled  supremacy  in  Ulster. 

When  Jeremy  Taylor,  however,  wrote  the  letter 
which  has  just  been  quoted,  at  the  beginning  of 
February  1660,  the  tide  was  flowing  fast  towards 
tolerance,  for  the  new  Convention,  which  had  been 
called  together  in  Dublin  to  replace  the  dissolved  Irish 
parliament,  was  a  complex  body,  in  which,  although 
the  Presbyterians  seemed  predominant,  the  prelatical 
party  had  a  great  deal  to  say.  As  the  restoration 
of  the  Stuarts  became  more  and  more  certain,  the 
ministers  protested  their  fondness  for  the  Royal  family. 
But  the  Irish  were  suspicious,  and  Patrick  Adair 
pathetically  complains,  "  Yea,  where  a  man  was  sober 
and  godly,  his  loyalty  was  by  the  common  sort  of 
people  more  suspected."  Meanwhile  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  again  in  great  poverty  ;  if  it  had  not  been  for  a 
gift  from  Evelyn  he  could  not  have  paid  his  debts. 
He  was  able,  however,  to  pass  through  Dublin  early  in 
the  spring,  and  to  arrive  in  London  in  April.  On  the 


160  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

24th  of  that  month  he  affixed  his  signature  to  the 
declaration  of  those  leading  loyalists  who  expressed  their 
satisfaction  with  Monk's  policy  and  their  confidence 
in  his  judgment,  and  who  declared  for  a  constitutional 
form  of  government.  Of  Taylor's  attitude  at  this 
time,  Rust  gives  an  account,  which  no  doubt  gives  a 
very  fair  impression  of  the  delirious  excitement  which 
prevailed  in  the  bosoms  of  all  loyalists  and  churchmen. 
"By  this  time  the  wheel  of  providence  brought  about 
the  King's  happy  restoration,  and  there  began  a  new 
world,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of 
the  waters,  and  out  of  a  confused  chaos  brought  forth 
beauty  and  order,  and  all  the  three  nations  were 
inspired  with  a  new  life,  and  became  drunk  with  an 
excess  of  joy.  Among  the  rest,  this  loyal  subject 
[Jeremy  Taylor]  went  over  to  congratulate  the  prince 
and  people's  happiness,  and  bear  a  part  in  the  universal 
triumph." 

On  his  passage  through  Dublin,  Taylor  had  been 
able  to  observe  the  astonishing  improvement  in  the 
prospects  of  his  party,  which  the  mere  communication 
with  the  King  at  Breda  had  brought  with  it.  If  the 
populace  were  sympathisers  with  the  Presbytery,  men 
of  light  and  leading  were  numerous  on  the  Episcopal 
side.  The  stronger  bishops,  particularly  Bramhall  and 
Henry  Leslie,  hastened  to  Dublin  with,  what  their 
antagonists  lacked,  a  definite  plan  of  campaign.  Leslie, 
who,  throughout  the  troublous  times  had  courageously 
stuck  to  it  that  he  was,  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the 
King,  still  Lord  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  was  in 
close  communication  with  Taylor.  Meanwhilo,  the 
Presbyterians  felt  the  lack  of  commanding  personages 
in  their  democracy.  One  of  the  cleverest  of  them, 


v.]  PORTMORE  161 

Patrick  Adair,  has  described  the  condition  of  things  in 
mournful  terms  :  "  The  Presbyterians  had  not  men  of 
note  and  quality  to  be  leaders  in  these  affairs."  Trans- 
lated from  their  homes  in  Ulster,  the  ministers  were 
out  of  their  element  in  Dublin,  whither  Adair  himself 
resorted  to  witness  the  melancholy  change.  "Our 
grandees,"  he  says,  "began  to  court  the  few  old 
bishops  who  were  in  Ireland,  and  who  had  then 
repaired  to  Dublin.  They  allowed  them  considerable 
salaries  in  the  meantime,  and  began  to  give  them  their 
titles.  .  .  .  Some  bishops  who,  at  my  arrival  there, 
had  very  hardly  access  to  the  Commissioners  upon  any 
business,  no  one  seeming  to  own  them  in  the  streets, 
and  who  had  been  content  with  the  countenance  of 
any  private  person,  before  I  left  [within  three  months 
of  his  arrival]  had  become  high,  and  much  courted, 
and  their  titles  given  them." 

But  Jeremy  Taylor  was  now  in  London,  and  very 
shortly  after  the  King's  arrival,  giving  his  publisher 
only  just  time  to  hurry  through  the  press  a  jubilant 
preface  of  welcome  to  "the  most  Sacred  Majesty  of 
Charles  n.,"  he  published  at  length  the  enormous  work 
on  which  we  have  seen  him  engaged  at  intervals  for  at 
least  twenty  years.  He  had  made  effort  after  effort 
to  produce  it  before,  but  always  without  success.  His 
publisher  was  shy  of  so  huge  an  enterprise ;  his  fellow- 
divines  had  eyed  it  with  suspicion.  That  he  could  not 
issue  his  great  book  of  cases  of  conscience  had  been 
the  disappointment  of  his  literary  life.  But  now,  as 
he  says,  "our  duty  stands  upon  the  sunny  side";  any- 
thing published  by  the  most  eminent  of  living  divines 
was  sure  of  a  sale ;  and  Royston  hesitated  no  longer. 
Jeremy  Taylor,  forever  adding  instances  and  heaping 

L 


162  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

up  details,  had  come  at  last  to  the  conclusion  that  his 
book  was  finished.  He  may  well  have  been  put  out 
of  countenance  by  the  mountain  of  his  manuscript. 
On  the  5th  of  October  1659  he  closed  the  last  sentence 
of  his  preface  in  "  my  study  in  Portmore  in  Killultagh," 
although  tradition  asserts  that  the  words  were  written 
in  a  building  on  what  is  now  the  desolate  islet  which 
has  been  described  in  Lough  Beg.  He  decided  on  a 
title  at  last,  Ductor  Dubitantium,  or  the  Rule  of  Conscience 
in  all  her  general  measures.  He  anticipated  for  his  boolc 
a  universal  welcome ;  this,  or  nothing,  was  to  be  his 
masterpiece. 

Posterity  has  refused  anything  more  than  respectful 
recognition  to  the  Ductor  Dubitantium.  Its  bulk,  its 
Avant  of  variety,  its  utter  discord  with  what  we  demand 
in  the  form  of  theology,  have  left  it  to  moulder  on 
high  library  shelves.  But  it  has  too  hurriedly  been 
stated  that  it  was  a  failure  from  the  beginning. 
Considered  as  an  enterprise,  Taylor's  judgment  was 
justified  as  against  the  reluctance  of  Royston.  It  was 
issued  first  in  two  folio  volumes,  then  in  one,  and,  costly 
as  it  was,  it  was  reprinted  at  least  three  times  before 
the  close  of  the  century.  Of  the  bulk  of  the  Ductor, 
some  impression  may  be  formed  from  the  fact  that,  if 
printed  from  the  same  type,  it  would  occupy  some 
twelve  volumes  equivalent  to  the  present  monograph. 
This  is  a  surprising  amplitude  for  a  treatise  on  the 
conscience.  But  it  must  be  recollected  that  it  was 
produced  during  an  age  of  scruple,  although,  it  is  true, 
towards  the  decline  of  that  age.  Taylor  intended  it, 
too,  to  be,  as  far  as  possible,  exhaustive.  Moreover 
there  were  still  those  alive  who  recollected  the  official 
establishment  which  had  been  opened  at  Oxford  for 


v.]  PORTMORE  163 

the  settlement  of  cases  of  conscience,  and  some  who 
would  have  welcomed  the  re-establishment  of  what 
scoffers  had  called  "  the  scruple-shop." 

All  through  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  efforts  had  been  made  to  compile  a  definitive 
manual  of  Anglican  casuistry.  There  had  been  felt 
"a  great  scarcity  of  books  of  cases  of  conscience";  a 
Avant  not  supplied  by  the  innumerable  expositions 
and  lectures  of  William  Perkins,  nor  even  by  Joseph 
Hall's  Resolutions  and  Decisions.  Taylor  speaks  of  what 
Hooker  essayed  to  do;  he  does  not  mention  what 
Donne  in  one  generation  and  Sanderson  in  the  next 
had  planned.  All  had  either  sketched  the  work  too 
lightly,  or  had  shrunk  from  its  onerous  elaboration. 
Taylor  attributed  all  these  failures  to  the  lack  of  that 
psychological  knowledge  which  experience  only  can 
supply.  "  The  careless  and  needless  neglect  of  receiv- 
ing private  confessions  hath  been  too  great  a  cause  of 
our  not  providing  materials  apt  for  so  pious  and  useful 
a  ministration."  He  speaks  of  "private  conferences" 
and  of  "admonitions  and  answers  given  when  some 
more  pious  and  religious  persons  came  to  confessions," 
as  the  true  preparation  for  such  a  manual  of  casuistical 
theology.  Well,  perhaps  no  one  else  in  that  troubled 
age  had  enjoyed  exactly  the  same  or  anything  like  the 
same  advantages  in  this  direction  as  Jeremy  Taylor 
had  enjoyed  in  his  confidential  peregrinations.  All 
manner  of  strange  scruples,  all  sophistications  and 
subtleties  of  conscience,  all  meanderings  of  souls  to 
whom  life  was  "a  wood  before  your  doors,  and  a 
labyrinth  within  the  wood,  and  locks  and  bars  to  every 
door  within  that  labyrinth,"  had  been  submitted  to 
him  in  secret  by  anxious  penitents,  and  for  each  his 


164  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

lucid  and  ingenious  spirit  had  devised  some  sort  of 
guidance. 

The  result  of  twenty  years  of  cases  noted  in  a  suc- 
cession of  pocket-books,  —  that  is  the  Ductor  Dubi- 
tantium ;  and  it  is  hopeless  to  pretend  that  it  offers  a 
vivid  interest  now  to  a  generation  which  has  shelved 
its  scruples  altogether,  or  has  generously  simplified 
them.  How  can  we  excite  ourselves  to-day  with  a 
discussion  as  to  whether  a  man  who  has  taken  a  vow 
to  abstain  from  wine  may  "nevertheless  drink  sherbets 
and  delicious  beverages,  strong  ale  and  spirits "  1 
Although  "  a  man  is  very  much  better  than  a  beast," 
is  not  the  life  of  a  beast  "better  than  the  superfluous 
hair  of  a  man's  beard  "  ?  Common  sense  decides  th4s 
without  casuistical  effort.  Still  more  remote  from  us 
is  the  inquiry  whether  "  he  that  buys  the  body  of  a 
slave  hath  right  to  all  the  ministries  of  his  soul "  1 
A  hospitably -minded  Christian  no  longer  rushes  to  his 
parish  priest  to  be  told  whether  it  is  lawful  to  help  an 
honoured  guest  to  get  drunk  at  his  table.  These  seem 
to  us,  what  the  still  subtler  hair-splittings  of  the  Fathers 
seemed  to  Taylor,  "  ridiculous  commentaries  and  useless 
glosses."  They  do  explicit  injustice  to  the  intelligence 
and  good  sense  which  he  rarely  fails  to  display  in  his 
commentaries,  as  where  he  openly  declares  that  a  great 
deal  that  passes  for  scrupulosity  of  conscience  is  no- 
thing but  the  direct  result  of  fatigue  or  ill-health. 
His  object  is  really  to  apply  medicine  to  the  morbid 
nerves  of  his  age.  He  does  not  encourage  useless 
"tremblings";  he  is  distinctly  averse  to  unnecessary 
rules  and  the  multiplication  of  unbearable  burdens. 
The  Ductor  Dubitantium  is,  in  theology,  very  much 
what  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica  is  in 


v.]  PORTMORE  165 

zoology.  It  is  the  work  of  a  great  modern  spirit, 
enlightened  far  beyond  the  average  of  his  own  day,  yet 
bearing  about  with  him,  and  exhibiting  on  every  page, 
the  evidences  of  the  surrounding  popular  darkness. 

In  the  course  of  a  work  from  which — and  this  is  one 
great  source  of  its  tedium  to-day — the  autobiographical 
element  is  severely  excluded,  we  come  with  pleasure 
on  a  single  paragraph,  which  gives  the  general  reader 
all  that  he  needs  to  know  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  attitude 
towards  his  "  cases  of  conscience  "  : — 

"  In  hard  and  intricate  questions  I  take  that  which  is  easy 
and  intelligible,  and  concerning  which  it  will  be  easy  to  judge 
whether  it  be  right  or  wrong.  In  odious  things,  and  matters 
of  burden  and  envy,  I  take  that  part  which  is  least,  unless 
there  be  evident  reason  to  the  contrary.  In  favours,  I  always 
choose  the  largest  sense,  when  any  one  is  bettered  by  that 
sense,  and  no  man  is  the  worse.  In  things  and  matters 
relating  to  men,  I  give  those  answers  that  take  away  scruples, 
and  bring  peace  and  a  quiet  mind.  In  things  relating  to  God 
I  always  choose  to  speak  that  thing  which  to  Him  is  most 
honourable.  In  matters  of  duty  I  always  choose  that  which 
is  most  holy.  In  doubts  I  choose  what  is  safest.  In  pro- 
babilities I  prefer  that  which  is  the  more  reasonable,  never 
allowing  to  any  one  a  leave  of  choosing  that  which  is  con- 
fessedly the  less  reasonable  in  the  whole  conjunction  of 
circumstances." 

The  pity  of  this  lucid  and  admirably  just  summary 
of  the  right  temper  of  priestly  sympathy  is,  that  it  raises 
the  question  whether  the  conscience  requires  more 
guidance  than  is,  precisely  in  these  sentences,  indicated ; 
whether,  in  short,  from  the  practical  point  of  view,  the 
remainder  of  the  vast  folio  is  not  a  superfluity.  At  the 
worst  it  is  an  entertaining  miscellany  of  stories  and 
maxims,  which  might  be  read  with  pleasure  to-day,  if  it 


166  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

were  not  clogged  with  such  masses  of  Latin  and  Greek, 
and  if  it  were  not  so  interminably  lengthy.  But  there  is 
another  reason,  and  one  too  curious  to  be  omitted,  why 
the  Dmtor  Dubitantium  is  no  longer  to  be  recommended 
as  a  convenient  guide  for  the  scrupulous.  Jeremy 
Taylor's  vast,  confidential  experience  had  proved  to 
him  how  paramount  a  place  is  taken  by  what  he  calls 
"  odious  things  "  in  the  scruples  of  the  sincere.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  Ductor  Dubitantium  is  crowded 
with  considerations  which  a  wise  and  liberal-minded 
priest  might  discuss  in  private  conversation  with  adult 
persons,  but  which  must,  one  thinks,  even  in  1660, 
have  seemed  indiscreet  and  embarrassing  Avhen  set 
down  in  print  in  a  popular  manual. 

The  saturation  of  Taylor's  memory  by  the  pagan 
classics  had  given  him  a  certain  perduration  of  mind, 
so  that  things  which  he  sternly  reproved,  and  most 
sincerely  abhorred,  were  yet  no  longer  outside  the 
range  of  what  he  was  prepared  quietly  to  discuss.  He 
no  longer  discerned  what  things  those  are  which  it 
is  better  that  untrained  consciences  should  not  even 
contemplate,  nor  realised  that  there  are  turpitudes 
which  demand  silence  more  than  exhortation.  So 
singularly  large  a  place  is  taken  by  "  odious  things " 
throughout  the  Ductor,  that  it  would  be  disingenuous 
not  to  face  this  characteristic,  which  is  partly,  of 
course,  but  not  at  all  entirely,  common  to  the  age  in 
which  Taylor  wrote.  In  all  these  matters,  and  in  the 
treatment  of  other  scruples  of  conscience,  his  absolute 
mental  aloofness  is  very  interesting.  He  had  the 
judicial  mind  in  its  quintessence,  and  in  practice  must 
have  been  the  most  imperturbable  of  confessors.  Himr 
at  all  events,  we  may  without  levity  admit,  no  penitent 


T.]  PORTMORE  167 

could  "shock"  out  of  his  decorum.  And  throughout, 
nevertheless,  with  his  legal  air  of  the  tribunal,  he 
admits  that  in  all  things,  within  a  certain  oscillation 
of  the  rules,  each  man  is  a  law  unto  himself,  and 
truth  itself  not  rigorously  positive,  but  "  like  a  dove's 
neck  or  a  changeable  taffeta."  It  may  be  added  that 
if  any  reader  desires  to-day — no  small  adventure — to 
read  the  Ductor  Dubitantium,  he  may  do  so  with  profit 
in  the  laborious  edition  brought  out  in  1851  by  a 
namesake  of  the  author,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Taylor. 

Charles  II.  arrived  in  London  on  the  29th  of  May 
1660,  and  Taylor  was  one  of  those  who  took  part  in  the 
rapturous  reception.  Sixteen  years  had  passed  since, 
as  his  father's  domestic  chaplain,  Taylor  had  seen  the 
prince,  and  we  may  speculate  in  vain  how  the  changes 
in  his  appearance  and  demeanour  struck  him.  This 
was  the  moment  when  all  lovers  of  Jeremy  Taylor's 
genius  must  unite  in  wishing  that  he  had  been  en- 
couraged to  remain  in  England,  but  it  is  evident  that 
Bramhall,  who  was  shortly  nominated  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  and  Leslie,  who  was  to  be  translated  from 
Down  to  Meath,  must  have  represented  that  the  presence 
of  Taylor  was  essential  to  the  wellbeing  of  the  Irish 
Church.  Accordingly,  on  the  6th  of  August  1660  he 
was  nominated,  under  the  privy  seal,  to  the  vacant 
bishopric  of  Down  and  Connor,  and  shortly  afterwards, 
on  his  way  back  to  his  see,  was,  at  Ormonde's  recom- 
mendation, appointed  vice-chancellor  of  the  University 
of  Dublin.  Although  he  did  not  take  the  oaths  for  the 
latter  office  until  early  in  1661,  he  lost  no  time  in 
devoting  himself  to  the  labour  of  university  reform. 
On  arriving  in  Dublin,  he  immediately  set  himself  to 
visit  Trinity  College,  and  on  the  3rd  of  October 


168  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

presented  his  first  report  to  Lord  Ormonde.  He  found 
all  the  internal  affairs  of  the  University  "in  a  perfect 
disorder."  The  Provost  was  the  only  surviving  relic 
of  the  whole  foundation,  and  it  was  necessarj^  to  set 
aside  all  the  usual  methods  of  election  to  fill  the  vacant 
fellowships. 

He  proposed,  therefore,  that  a  committee,  consisting 
of  himself,  James  Margetson,  Archbishop  of  Dublin, 
as  visitor,  and  the  Provost  of  Trinity,  should 
nominate  seven  senior  fellows,  three  of  whom,  Dr. 
Sterne,  Joshua  Cowley,  and  Patrick  Sheridan,  we  know 
to  have  been  personal  friends  of  Taylor's.  Great 
practical  difficulties,  however,  intervened ;  Ormonde 
was  not  willing  to  resign  his  own  prerogative  of 
nomination,  and  it  was  not  until  December  that  "the 
college  was  in  its  former  state  and  possibility  of 
proceeding  according  to  the  elections."  Just  before 
Christmas,  Taylor  laments  that  "  we  have  no  public 
statutes  relating  to  an  university,  no  established  forms 
of  collating  degrees,  no  public  lecturers,  no  schools,  no 
Regius  professor  of  Divinity,  and  scarce  any  ensignes 
academical."  But  gradually  all  these  things  were  set 
on  foot,  and  it  was  not  until  he  had  seen  "the 
university  rising  to  its  full  state  and  splendour  "  that 
he  ventured  to  quit  Dublin  and  proceed  to  his 
northern  diocese.  In  his  Life  of  Ormonde,  Carte  dwells 
on  Taylor's  prodigious  industry  in  collecting,  arranging, 
revising,  and  completing  the  body  of  statutes  which 
Bedell  had  left  in  confusion.  But  later  writers  have 
hardly  done  justice  to  the  extraordinary  merit  of 
Taylor's  labours  in  reconstituting  the  ancient  centre  of 
Protestant  learning  in  Ireland,  when  it  had  become  a 
mere  "  heap  of  men  and  boys,  but  no  body  of  a  college, 


v.]  PORTMORE  169 

no  one  member,  either  fellow  or  scholar,  having  any 
legal  title  to  his  place."  He  carried  out  this  great 
work,  too,  in  the  midst  of  distracting  and  humiliating 
interruptions  of  a  most  painful  kind,  for  his  nomina- 
tion to  the  see  of  Down  and  Connor  had  been  received 
with  a  storm  of  protest  in  the  Ulster  presbyteries. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  by  us,  what  is  doubtless 
well  remembered  in  Trinity  College,  that  Jeremy 
Taylor  was  the  regenerating  force  which  drew  to 
one  common  system  the  scattered  elements  of  Irish 
learning. 

Late  in  the  summer  of  1660  Royston  published 
another  work  of  considerable  importance  by  Jeremy 
Taylor,  The  Worthy  Communicant.  This  was  a  treatise  of 
a  wholly  uncontroversial  character,  composed  in  a  spirit 
of  serenity  to  which  the  author's  conditions  had  long 
made  him  a  stranger.  It  has  been  hastily  described  as 
written  to  instruct  the  newly  victorious  Royalists  in 
their  duty  to  God.  But  careful  examination  will  show 
that  this  is  a  mistake.  Near  the  end  of  The  Worthy 
Communicant  we  find  the  author  speaking  of  the  age  in 
which  he  writes,  as  one  where  piety  has  suffered  ship- 
wreck, where  all  discipline  has  been  lost  in  the  storm, 
and  where  good  manners  have  been  thrown  overboard. 
"The  best  remedy  in  the  world  that  yet  remains  and 
is  in  use  amongst  the  most  pious  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  church,  is  that  they  should  conduct  their  repent- 
ance by  the  continual  advices  and  ministry  of  a 
spiritual  guide."  These  Avords  evidently  point  to  the 
time,  from  1657  to  1659,  when  Jeremy  Taylor  was 
acting  as  a  secret  pastor,  in  the  darkest  hour,  and 
among  those  who  had  still  no  hope  of  ecclesiastical 
restoration. 


170  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

The  advent  of  Charles  n.,  however,  offered  him  an 
opportunity  to  bring  forth  his  MS.  and  publish  it.  It 
is  at  any  time  a  fatherly  task  for  a  divine  to  sum  up 
the  duties  of  those  who  gather  to  receive  the  Holy 
Communion.  Still,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that 
something  of  the  appropriateness  of  this  particular 
treatise  had  passed  away  as  soon  as  the  embargo  upon 
public  Anglican  worship  had  been  removed.  The 
mystery,  the  air  of  ghostly  comfort  to  a  beleaguered 
camp  of  the  faithful,  the  unction  of  adversity, — these 
are  lost  when  all  is  prosperity  and  sunshine ;  and  the 
attitude  of  affliction  seems  misdirected  when  the  long- 
persecuted  remnant  are  in  the  very  act  of  being 
rewarded  with  posts  of  dignity  and  emolument. 
Hence,  perhaps,  although  this  is  in  some  respects 
one  of  Taylor's  least-contestable  works,  it  was  never 
a  great  popular  favourite.  The  Worthy  Communicant 
was  dedicated  to  the  Princess  Mary  of  Orange,  the 
King's  sister.  This  lady,  who  had  been  left  a  widow 
at  nineteen,  had  developed  a  strong  character.  A  con- 
vinced Protestant  in  spite  of  all  the  pressure  towards 
Eome  brought  to  bear  upon  her  by  her  mother,  Queen 
Henrietta  Maria,  she  had  become  a  particular  patron  of 
English  divinity.  Her  court  in  Holland  "hath  been 
in  all  these  late  days  of  sorrow  a  sanctuary  to  the 
afflicted,  a  chapel  for  the  religious,"  and  it  was  hoped 
that  her  arrival  in  England  would  be  of  good  omen  for 
the  English  Church. 

Princess  Mary  of  Orange  was  a  great  admirer  of 
Taylor's  genius.  She  "read  and  used  divers  of  my 
books,"  he  says.  He  had  not  seen  her  since  she  was  a 
child  of  twelve,  and  he  was  disappointed  of  resuming 
an  acquaintance  which  would  now  have  been  of  great 


v.]  PORTMORE  171 

value  to  him.  The  Princess  delayed  her  coming,  and 
before  she  arrived,  on  the  30th  of  September,  Taylor's 
duties  had  called  him  back  to  Ireland.  Her  visit  to 
England  was  ill-starred  in  the  highest  degree ;  she  was 
displeased  with  many  things,  her  health  failed,  and  on 
the  24th  of  December  she  died,  only  twenty-nine  years 
of  age,  leaving  behind  her,  besides  a  reputation  for 
piety  and  for  something  of  the  family  obstinacy,  a 
child  who  was  destined  to  be  King  William  ill.  It  is 
almost  certain  that  if  the  Princess  had  remained  at  the 
court  of  Whitehall,  she  would  have  insisted  on  securing 
for  Jeremy  Taylor  promotion  to  one  of  the  great 
English  sees  for  which  his  loyalty,  his  eloquence,  and 
his  unrivalled  reputation  so  manifestly  designed  him. 

Towards  the  close  of  The  Worthy  Communicant  Jeremy 
Taylor  uses  words  which  accurately  sum  up  the  scope 
of  that  book.  "Every  worthy  communicant,"  he  says, 
"  must  prepare  himself  by  a  holy  life,  by  mortification 
of  all  his  sins,  by  the  acquisition  of  all  Christian  graces. 
And  this  is  not  the  work  of  a  day,  or  a  week ;  but  by  how 
much  the  more  these  things  are  done,  by  so  much  the 
better  are  we  prepared."  The  treatise  is  non-conten- 
tious; its  tone  is  gentle  and  persuasive.  It  is  a  dis- 
course of  the  nature  and  uses  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
"  the  blessings  and  fruits  of  the  Sacrament,"  and  of  how 
we  must  initiate  ourselves  into  them.  It  is,  in  short, 
u  manual  of  conduct  in  these  solemn  circumstances  ;  it 
contains  many  wise  and  beautiful  reflections,  might  be 
shredded  into  an  anthology  of  maxims,  and  is  inter- 
spersed, after  Jeremy  Taylor's  favourite  fashion,  with 
exquisitely  fervent  prayers.  "  The  fierce  saying  of  a 
few  warm  and  holy  words  is  not  a  sufficient  preparation 
to  these  sacred  mysteries,"  and  we  are,  throughout,  in 


172  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

the  presence  of  one  who  is  deeply  soliciteus  for  the 
persistent  holiness  of  the  souls  to  whom  he  is  the  guide. 
Ever-recurring  are  Taylor's  extreme  solicitude  about 
the  importance  of  vital  repentance,  and  about  the 
necessity  of  keeping  the  conscience  sensitive  and  sound. 

From  a  literary  point  of  view,  Tlie  Worthy  Communi- 
cant exhibits  the  natural,  we  may  almost  say  the 
physical,  progress  of  its  author's  mind.  It  is  marked 
by  strength  and  warmth  of  expression,  and  by  an 
absence  of  all  oddity  of  verbiage.  The  style  is  per- 
fectly pure  and  simple,  clarified  by  maturity  and 
experience.  At  the  same  time  the  rich  perfume  of  the 
Golden  Grove  period  seems  to  have  evaporated.  The 
images  taken  from  external  nature  have  almost  dis- 
appeared. The  apologues  are  still  beautifully  told,  but 
without  audacities  of  phrase ;  they  are  told  in  a  new 
way,  which  leans  towards  the  coming  Eighteenth 
Century.  Many  pages  here,  in  their  lucidity,  without 
colour  or  picturesqueness,  might  almost  be  the  writing 
of  Tillotson,  so  reasonable  and  succinct  are  their  con- 
structions. So  that  we  see,  in  this  book,  the  genius 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  unconsciously  responding  to  the 
appeal  of  European  taste,  and  adapting  its  step  to  the 
fashion  of  the  times.  But  already  how  far  are  we  from 
the  splendour  of  the  great  period,  while  in  exchange 
for  correctness  and  sobriety  of  style  we  have  parted 
with  a  charm  that  now  never  can  return.  This 
estimable  book  consoles  us  for  the  fact  that  events  now 
interrupted  and  presently  closed  the  life  of  Taylor  as 
a  man  of  letters,  since  it  shows  us  that  what  we  love 
best  in  his  writing,  its  rapturous  mounting  note,  had 
departed  from  it  for  ever. 

Jeremy  Taylor  was  not  left  under  any  illusion  as  to 


v.]  PORTMORE  173 

his  welcome  in  County  Down.  A  preliminary  visit  to 
his  intended  diocese  filled  him  with  alarm  and  dis- 
appointment. In  the  face  of  impending  events,  his 
first  impressions,  as  reported  to  Ormonde  in  a  letter 
of  December  19,  1660,  deserve  our  careful  notice  : — 

"His  sacred  Majesty  and  your  Excellence  intended  to 
prefer  me,  in  giving  me  the  bishopric  of  Down.  But, — 
besides  that  I  find  it  very  much  short  of  what  it  was  repre- 
sented to  me,  and  much  of  the  rents  litigious  and  uncertain, 
of  which  I  will  not  complain, — I  perceive  myself  thrown  into 
a  place  of  torment.  The  country  would  quickly  be  very  well, 
if  the  Scotch  ministers  were  away,  at  least  some  of  the  prime 
incendiaries.  All  the  nobility  and  gentry,  one  only  [Lord 
Massereene]  excepted,  are  very  right,  but  the  ministers  are 
implacable.  They  have  for  these  four  months  past  solemnly 
agreed,  and  very  lately  renewed  their  resolution,  of  preaching 
vigorously  and  constantly  against  episcopacy  and  liturgy.  .  .  . 
They  talk  of  resisting  unto  blood,  and  stir  up  the  people  to 
sedition.  .  .  .  They  have  now  gone  about  to  asperse  me  as  an 
Arminian,  and  a  Socinian,  and  a  Papist, — or  at  least  half  a 
Papist,  .  .  .  and  I  am  not  at  all  guilty,  as  having  no  other 
religion  but  that  of  the  Church  of  England,  for  which  I  have 
suffered  the  persecution  of  eighteen  years.  .  .  .  But  yet  they 
have  lately  bought  my  books,  and  appointed  a  committee  of 
Scotch  spiders  to  see  if  they  can  gather  or  make  poison  out  of 
them,  and  have  drawn  some  little  thing,  I  know  not  what,  into 
a  paper,  and  intend  to  petition  to  his  Majesty  that  I  may  not 
be  their  bishop." 

It  is  amusing  to  see  an  amiable  inconsistency 
between  Taylor's  anger  at  "Scotch  spiders"  buying 
his  books,  and  his  advice,  given  a  few  days  later, 
to  a  fellow  of  Trinity  of  the  name  of  Graham, 
who  asked  for  a  list  of  the  best  existing  works  on 
practical  theology,  perhaps  for  the  College  Library. 
In  the  latter  case,  Taylor  cheerfully  supplied  a  brief 


174  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

catalogue  of  publications  which  "he  that  would 
improve  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England " 
must  "be  very  perfect  in  every  part  of";  and  there 
is  scarcely  a  book  or  a  pamphlet  which  Taylor  had 
ever  printed  which  does  not  appear  somewhere  or 
other  on  this  list.  Meanwhile  his  complaint  to  Ormonde 
was  perhaps  a  little  more  tragical  than  the  circumstances 
demanded,  although  these  were  awkward  enough.  He 
went  down  from  Dublin  to  preach  every  Sunday  some- 
where or  other  in  his  future  diocese,  and  had  already 
made  a  good  impression  upon  the  affections  of  "the 
gentry  and  the  better  sort  of  the  people.",  Among  the 
non-Presbyterian  part  of  the  population  he  met  with 
universal  esteem.  Unhappily,  of  course,  it  was  pre- 
cisely the  Presbyterians  who  were  vastly  in  the  majority, 
and  Jeremy  Taylor  was  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
their  ministers,  at  least,  were  implacable.  His  report 
of  their  rejection  of  his  advances  is  not  to  their  credit. 
The  bishop  wrote  : — 

"  They  threaten  to  murder  me.  They  use  all  the  arts  they 
can  to  disgrace  me,  and  to  take  the  people's  hearts  from  me, 
and  to  make  my  life  uncomfortable  and  useless  to  the  service 
of  his  Majesty  and  the  Church.  ...  It  were  better  for  me  to 
be  a  poor  curate  in  a  village  church  than  a  bishop  over  such 
intolerable  persons ;  and  I  will  petition  your  Excellence  to 
give  me  some  parsonage  in  Munster,  that  I  may  end  my  days 
in  peace,  rather  than  abide  here,  unless  I  may  be  enabled  with 
comfort  to  contest  against  such  violent  persons.  .  .  .  My 
charge  hath  in  it  more  trouble  than  all  the  dioceses  in  his 
Majesty's  dominions  put  together." 

He  was  quite  sincere  in  wishing  to  withdraw  from 
Down  and  Connor.  He  begged  Ormonde  to  let  him 
come  back  to  Dublin  and  devote  himself  entirely  "  to 


v.]  PORTMORE  175 

the  service  and  resettling  of  the  University,"  which 
still  required  great  care  and  labour.  When  the  govern- 
ment merely  smiled,  and  said  that  he  must  stay  in 
Ulster  and  do  his  best,  Taylor  replied  that  in  that  case 
he  must  be  assisted  by  the  secular  arm.  Ormonde 
then  signified  that  the  Bishop  would  receive  full 
support  in  doing  his  duty,  and  that  he  must  not  take 
such  a  despairing  view.  If  the  Scotch  spiders  were 
sulky,  he  must  handle  a  long  broom  and  sweep  them 
out  of  their  webs.  Accordingly,  he  took  what  heart 
he  could,  but  he  had  no  peace  or  happiness  all  the 
time  that  he  was  bishop  in  Down;  and  there  can 
be  no  question  that  the  constant  friction  with  his 
Presbyterian  neighbours,  and  those  "insufferable  dis- 
couragements "  of  which  he  never  ceased  to  complain, 
paralysed  his  usefulness  and  shortened  his  life. 

The  ecclesiastical  arrangements  for  the  filling  of  the 
Irish  sees  were  not  finally  completed  until  the  18th  of 
January  1661,  when  two  archbishops  and  ten  bishops 
were  instituted  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral.  John 
Bramhall,  now  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  in  succession 
to  Ussher,  who  had  died  five  years  before,  presided 
at  the  consecration,  and  Jeremy  Taylor  preached  the 
sermon.  Old  Henry  Leslie,  who  was  in  his  eighty- 
first  year,  was  transferred  from  Down  and  Connor 
to  Meath,  and  Jeremy  Taylor  took  his  place.  Eobert 
Leslie,  who  "was  nothing  short  of  his  father  in 
cruelty  to  Nonconformists,  but  rather  exceeded  him," 
went  to  Dromore.  It  was  in  these  contiguous  Ulster 
dioceses  that  the  Presbyterians  were  strongest,  and 
"  there  were  not  three  such  bishops  in  Ireland " 
for  the  stringency  of  their  Episcopalianism.  It  is 
melancholy  to  have  to  record  that  even  Bramhall, 


176  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

who  was  called  "  the  Irish  Laud,"  did  not  contrive  to 
vex  the  souls  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  so  much 
as  did  the  author  of  the  Liberty  of  Prophesying.  Taylor 
was  but  carrying  out,  however,  the  theories  of  his 
predecessor,  Henry  Leslie,  who  had  compared  the 
Independents  and  the  Presbyterians  to  the  thieves 
between  whom  our  Lord  was  crucified. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  headquarters  when  he  first  took  up 
the  labours  of  his  diocese  was  Hillsborough,  where  he 
is  believed  to  have  occupied  rooms,  with  his  family,  in 
"  the  noble  large  house,"  fitted  up  as  a  regular  fortress, 
which  had  been  built  and  manned  by  Colonel  Arthur 
Hill.  There  is  no  other  place  in  Ireland  where  the 
impression  of  Taylor's  daily  life  can  be  reconstructed 
with  so  great  a  measure  of  success  as  it  can  at  Hills- 
borough.  The  castle  of  the  Hills  had  been  built  on 
the  abrupt  eminence  of  Crumlin,  by  Colonel  Hill 
during  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  as  an  outpost  against 
the  rebels  of  the  west.  It  was  accidentally  burned 
down,  in  main  part,  early  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  the  family  then  removed  to  the  great  house,  a 
little  to  the  west,  which  is  still  the  residence  of  the 
Marquis  of  Downshire.  But  enough  is  left  of  the  old 
fortress  to  permit  us  to  restore  the  general  plan  of 
its  construction.  A  little  ecclesiastical  building,  ruined 
but  still  largely  intact,  on  the  ring  of  wall,  was  doubt- 
less the  chapel  in  which  Jeremy  Taylor  officiated. 
To  this  day  the  traces  of  buildings  around  the  court- 
yard are  brought  to  light  whenever  the  spade  is  used, 
and  before  any  town  existed  the  whole  life  of  the 
place  was  included  within  their  circle. 

The  pretty  and  neat  little  borough  town,  very 
English  in  character,  which  now  struggles  up  the  steep 


v.]  PORTMORE  177 

rock  from  the  north,  cannot  have  existed  in  the  seven- 
teenth century;  it  dates  from  about  1750.  But  there 
may  have  been  a  rude  village  lower  down,  where,  at 
the  bridge,  there  stood  a  small  parish  church  when 
Taylor  first  came  to  Hillsborough.  This  was  falling 
into  ruins,  and  in  1662  the  Bishop  and  Colonel  Hill 
constructed,  a  few  yards  from  the  old  castle  and  almost 
within  its  precincts,  a  spacious,  well-contrived  church, 
dedicated  to  St.  Malachy,  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  on 
the  very  brow  of  the  hill.  This,  which  was  called 
Jeremy  Taylor's  church,  was  rebuilt  and  much  enlarged, 
after  a  fire,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  all  that 
remains  of  it  is  the  base  of  one  of  the  outer  walls  built 
into  the  present  edifice. 

It  has  quite  recently  (1 903)  been  discovered  by  Canon 
Lett  of  Loughbrickland,  the  distinguished  antiquary, 
that  Homra  House,  a  little  solitary  mansion  two  miles 
to  the  west  of  Hillsborough,  just  off  the  road  to  Comber, 
belonged  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  that  in  the  later  part 
of  his  life  the  prelate  often  resided  there.  He  is  also 
said  to  have  occupied,  and  even  to  have  built,  a  house 
in  Castle  Street,  Lisburn,  opposite  the  door  of  the 
church  which  then  served  as  cathedral  to  the  united 
dioceses.  It  was,  however,  a  very  short  ride  from 
Hillsborough  to  Lisburn,  and  it  is  most  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  bishop  mainly  resided,  at  all  events 
at  first,  in  the  castle  at  Hillsborough,  where  he  was 
safer  than  anywhere  else  in  his  diocese  from  the  enmity 
of  his  Presbyterian  ministers,  and  from  their  petty 
annoyances.  In  Lisburn,  although  its  cathedral,  with 
a  tower  and  an  octagonal  spire,  may  vaguely  remain 
the  same,  there  is  little  else  to  recall  the  seventeenth 
century.  That  town  was  destroyed  by  fire  early  in  the 

M 


178  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

nineteenth,  and  has  scarcely  an  old  house  in  it.  The 
traveller,  however,  who  follows  the  undulating  road 
between  Lisburn  and  Hillsborough,  is  on  a  track  which 
must  have  been  incessantly  traversed  by  the  bishop, 
as  he  rode  from  his  castle  to  his  cathedral  church ;  and 
the  general  aspect  of  the  brisk,  rolling  landscape  has 
probably  changed  but  little  in  two  centuries  and  a  half. 
It  has,  however,  changed  in  one  particular  which  must 
not  be  forgotten.  As  Lord  Londonderry  said  in  a 
recent  speech,  the  county  of  Down,  which  is  now  the 
richest  in  Ireland,  was,  at  the  Restoration,  perhaps  the 
poorest. 

It  was  in  a  spirit  grievously  exasperated  against  the 
rebellious  shepherds  of  his  flock  that,  in  March  1661, 
Jeremy  Taylor  made  his  first  visitation.  He  sent  before 
him  into  Antrim  and  Down  a  proclamation  from  the 
Dublin  courts  of  justice,  discharging  all  Presbyterian 
meetings.  The  terrified  ministers,  at  his  approach, 
hurriedly  met  in  synod  at  Ballymena.  A  troop  of  horse 
was  sent  by  Taylor's  friend,  Sir  George  Rawdon,  to 
disperse  them,  but  they  had  concluded  their  meeting 
before  the  troopers  arrived.  They  forwarded  a  deputa- 
tion of  their  body  to  Dublin  to  plead  their  cause  before 
Lord  Ormonde.  Jeremy  Taylor  immediately  left  for  the 
north,  having  received  an  assurance  that  no  encourage- 
ment would  be  given  to  the  ministers.  He  waited  at 
his  apartments  in  Hillsborough  until  they  returned 
home,  and  then  summoned  them  all  to  meet  him  at 
Lisburn.  Meanwhile,  at  this  peculiar  juncture,  their 
principal  patron,  Lady  Clotworthy,  died,  and  at  her 
funeral,  which  took  place  at  Belfast  the  day  before 
that  which  the  bishop  had  fixed  for  the  visitation, 
the  ministers  took  counsel  together.  Then  and  there 


v.]  PORTMORE  179 

they  sent  three  of  their  number  to  Hillsborough,  to 
tell  Jeremy  Taylor  that  they  did  not  acknowledge  his 
Episcopal  jurisdiction,  and  should  not  appear  next  day 
in  answer  to  his  summons. 

It  does  not  seem  that  he  treated  the  representative 
ministers,  for  this  act  of  extreme  insubordination, 
with  severity.  He  told  them  that  if  they  would  define 
their  position  on  paper,  he  would  discuss  it  with  them. 
He  then  asked  them  whether  they  considered  the 
Presbyterian  form  of  government  exclusively  the  right 
one,  and  dejure  divino.  They  said  at  once  that  they 
did.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  what  else  they  could  say, 
but  on  the  other  hand  it  made  compromise  impossible. 
The  bishop  was  left  in  the  dilemma  that  he  must 
either  subdue  the  ministers,  or  resign  his  see.  This 
he  pointed  out  to  them,  and  added  "that  there  needed 
no  further  discourse  of  the  matter  of  accommodation," 
if  they  held  to  their  unyielding  position.  They  pro- 
fessed that  they  were  willing  to  discuss  their  views  in 
public  at  the  visitation,  but  the  bishop  naturally  felt 
that  it  was  impossible  to  allow  that.  Taylor's  patience 
seems  to  have  broken  down,  and  he  sharply  instructed 
them  that  "if  they  should  make  profession  contrary 
to  law  at  the  visitation,  they  would  smart  for  it." 
Then,  speaking  more  gently,  he  advised  them,  as 
a  friend,  not  to  attempt  to  justify  their  position 
by  argument.  But  iu  the  subsequent  conversation, 
much  bad  blood  was  stirred  on  both  sides,  and  we 
do  not  recognise  our  gentle  Taylor,  although  we  have 
had  experience  of  his  obstinacy,  when  he  told  his 
visitors,  who  hesitated  about  the  Oath  of  Supremacy, 
that  they  "  were  the  greatest  enemies  to  monarchy,  and 
most  disobedient  to  kings,  which  he  instanced  in  the 


180  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

case  of  the  Assembly  of  Scotland,  and  in  Calvin,  Knox, 
and  Buchanan."  He  compared  them  with  the  Jesuits, 
and  they  returned,  greatly  troubled  at  their  reception, 
to  their  brethren,  who  had  meanwhile  collected  at 
Lisburn,  but  who  now,  on  hearing  the  report  of  their 
friends,  dispersed  to  their  parishes. 

When  Taylor  arrived  at  Lisburn  next  day,  and 
found  that  only  two  of  his  entire  clergy  had  responded 
to  his  summons,  he  was  very  angry.  We  must  admit 
that  he  had  cause  for  his  vexation.  Those  who  have 
blamed  him  have  hardly,  it  seems  to  me,  taken  into 
due  consideration  the  humiliating  impasse  in  which  the 
rigidity  of  his  opponents  placed  him.  They  would 
neither  go  to  him  nor  leave  him  alone.  He  had 
hardly  retired  to  his  house  in  Hillsborough  when 
another  deputation  of  ministers  waited  upon  him. 
He  asked  them  why  they  had  treated  him  with  so 
much  contempt  by  not  coming  to  his  visitation.  They 
replied  "it  was  the  awe  of  God  and  conscience  that 
made  them  not  appear."  Seeing  that  he  could  obtain 
no  concession  of  any  kind  from  the  deputation,  he 
dismissed  them ;  but  he  called  several  of  them  to  him 
in  private,  and  spoke  to  them,  as  they  admitted,  with 
the  greatest  kindness  and  indulgence.  But,  says 
Patrick  Adair,  grimly,  "he  obtained  not  his  purpose," 
and  they  repaired  to  their  respective  congregations  in 
a  state  of  open  rebellion.  The  plan  of  the  ministers 
can  easily  be  comprehended ;  they  aimed  at  making  the 
diocese  of  Down  and  Connor  one  which  it  was  impossible 
for  a  bishop  of  the  Church  of  England  to  hold.  They 
thought  that  by  acting  in  unison,  and  by  refusing  to 
recognise  Jeremy  Taylor's  authority  in  any  way,  and 
by  hinting  broadly  about  "resisting  unto  blood,"  they 


v.]  PORTMORE  181 

would  so  distress  and  intimidate  the  bishop  that  he 
would  retire,  and  leave  Ulster  to  the.  undisputed  sway 
of  the  Presbytery.  They  had  seen  that  he  was  a  gentle, 
sensitive,  and  kind-hearted  man,  and  they  thought  that 
they  could  break  down  his  nerves. 

But  the  Presbyterian  ministers  reckoned  without  a 
quality  in  Jeremy  Taylor's  character,  to  which  we  have 
several  times  referred,  namely,  his  obstinacy.  Timid 
and  tractable  as  he  was,  there  was  easily  reached  a 
point  in  controversy  with  him  where  he  suddenly 
refused  to  yield  a  step  further.  Before  his  visitation 
at  Lisburn,  and  at  the  mere  thought  of  having  to 
face  the  "dour"  ministers,  he  had  passed  through  an 
agony  of  trepidation.  But  when  once  their  will  had 
clashed  with  his,  he  recovered  his  moral  equilibrium. 
If  we  look  at  the  events,  not  in  a  party  spirit,  with 
a  leaning  to  either  side  in  religion  or  politics,  but  as 
at  a  human  spectacle,  I  know  not  how  we  can  refuse 
our  admiration  to  Jeremy  Taylor  when  he  now  turns, 
and,  standing  almost  alone,  a  stranger  and  an  English- 
man in  this  fanatical  diocese,  defies  the  whole  body  of 
his  unscrupulous  foes.  He  saw  that  the  moment  for 
weakness  was  past.  The  Presbyterian  ministers  had 
openly  risen  in  revolt  against  him,  and  it  was  neces- 
sary to  choose  between  crushing  them  and  being 
crushed  by  them.  If  he  chose  the  latter,  he  betrayed 
the  Church  and  the  King,  his  own  principles,  the 
populations  among  whom  he  had  been  sent  as  a  shep- 
herd. He  did  not  hesitate  a  moment;  he  imme- 
diately declared  thirty-six  parishes  vacant,  and  filled 
these  incumbencies  with  clergy  whom  he  invited  out 
from  England.  What  with  these,  and  with  the  curates 
who  accompanied  them,  Taylor  brought  over  quite  a 


182  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

large  ecclesiastical  colony,  and  one  of  these  emigrants, 
the  excellent  George  Rust,  he  appointed  Dean  of 
Connor.  The  work  of  turning  out  the  Presbyterian 
ministers,  who  struggled  to  retain  their  parsonages 
"till  it  became  physically  impossible  for  them  to 
continue,"  of  installing  and  protecting  the  new  clergy, 
of  conciliating  the  congregations,  of  exhorting  and 
cheering  and  rebuking  his  flock  in  all  corners  of  the 
diocese,  of  deciding  cases  where,  as  at  Killead  and 
Antrim,  the  ministers  could  safely  be  allowed  a  six 
months'  grace,  —  all  this  occupied  Jeremy  Taylor 
through  the  stormy  year  1661.  Throughout  it  was 
a  painful  business,  involving  bitterness  and  exaspera- 
tion; but  all  the  evidence,  and  it  is  mainly  on  the 
Presbyterian  side,  goes  to  prove  that  the  bishop 
carried  out  his  distasteful  duty  with  firmness  and 
courage,  and,  superficially  at  least,  with  not  a  little 
success.  The  diocese,  at  all  events,  became  quiet, 
and  the  Episcopalian  form  of  worship  established. 

Taylor  often  lost  hope,  however,  and  he  was  never 
happy  in  County  Down.  At  the  end  of  March  1661, 
when  he  had  resided  there  only  a  couple  of  months, 
he  begged  that  if  the  aged  Henry  Leslie  should  die,  he 
might  be  translated  to  the  diocese  of  Meath,  which 
would  be  much  more  convenient  for  his  duties  in 
Dublin,  since  he  was  now  not  merely  vice-chancellor 
of  the  University,  but  a  member  of  the  Irish  Privy 
Council.  He  wrote  to  Ormonde :  "  Here  I  am  per- 
petually contending  with  the  worst  of  the  Scotch 
ministers.  I  have  a  most  uncomfortable  employment, 
but,  I  bless  God,  I  have  broken  their  knot,  I  have  over- 
come the  biggest  difficulty,  and  made  the  charge  easy 
for  my  successor."  To  Taylor's  extreme  disappoint- 


v.]  PORTMORE  183 

ment,  when  Leslie  died,  on  the  9th  of  April  1661,  Henry- 
Jones,  the  veteran  bishop  of  Clogher,  was  appointed  to 
the  vacant  diocese,  and  it  was  again  indicated  to  Taylor 
that  he  must  stay  where  he  was.  Doubtless  he  felt  that 
it  was  unreasonable  to  take  his  hand  from  the  plough 
so  soon,  for  we  hear  no  more  complaint  from  him  for 
some  years.  Meanwhile  he  laboured  in  the  thorny 
field,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  Rust,  speaking  to 
those  who  had  been  most  closely  associated  with  him, 
could  say  "with  what  care  and  faithfulness  he  dis- 
charged his  office,  we  are  all  his  witnesses." 


CHAPTER   VI 

DROMORE 

(1661-1667) 

JEREMY  TAYLOR  is  often  described  as  "Lord-Bishop 
of  Down,  Connor,  and  Dromore,"  and  this  is  even  the 
style  which  his  editor  and  biographer,  Heber,  gives 
him  on  the  title-page  of  the  Whole  Works.  He  seems 
to  have  been,  however,  at  no  time  Bishop  of  Dromore, 
although,  after  the  early  months  of  1661,  that  diocese 
became  a  very  important  centre  of  his  activities. 
Dromore  was  a  bishopric  founded  by  St.  Colman  in  the 
sixth  century,  but  its  independent  existence  in  post- 
Reformation  days  began  when  James  I.  severed  it 
from  the  diocese  of  Down,  in  which  it  had  been 
merged.  It  was  at  first  a  small  cluster  of  parishes  in 
the  western  part  of  the  county,  and  contained,  at  the 
Restoration,  only  five  incumbencies,  together  with 
several  "dignities  of  the  church,"  which  made  a  great 
strain  upon  its  slender  revenues.  The  rebellion  of 
1641  had  utterly  ruined  it.  Buck  worth,  the  bishop,  had 
just  completed,  at  great  expense,  a  palace  close  to  the 
cathedral,  and  this,  with  every  building  in  the  town, 
was  burned  by  the  Tories.  When  Jeremy  Taylor 
arrived  at  Hillsborough,  and  rode  over  to  Dromore, 
which  is  only  four  English  miles  to  the  south  of  that 

184 


CHAP,  vi.]  DROMORE  185 

fastness,  lie  found  a  poor  cluster  of  huts  beginning  to 
struggle  up  the  hill  from  the  river  Lagan,  but  no  attempt 
made  to  restore  the  charred  ruins  of  the  cathedral. 

The  diocese  of  Dromore  was  practically  bankrupt, 
and  Taylor  received  a  deputation  from  the  neighbour- 
ing nobility  and  gentry,  proposing  that  it  should  be 
merged  once  more  in  Down  and  Connor.  It  was,  as 
he  told  Ormonde,  "  not  of  extent  or  charge  enough  for  a 
bishop,"  and  on  the  28th  of  March  1661,  when  Henry 
Leslie  lay  a-dying,  Taylor,  as  we  have  seen,  applied  to 
the  government  that  he  should  be  translated  to  Meath, 
and  that  the  united  northern  diocese  should  be  resigned 
to  Robert  Leslie,  who  would  then  be  bishop,  not  merely 
of  Dromore,  but  of  Down  and  Connor  as  well.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  this  arrangement  was  not  carried 
out,  for  in  Meath  Taylor  would  not  only  have  been 
placed  in  the  midst  of  a  friendly  population,  but  he 
would  have  been  close  to  Dublin  and  to  his  valuable 
work  at  Trinity  College.  Ormonde,  however,  would 
not  hear  of  it,  but  Eobert  Leslie  was  translated  to 
Eaphoe,  and  on  the  30th  of  April  Taylor  was  appointed 
by  royal  letter  "administrator"  of  the  diocese  of 
Dromore.  The  plan  was,  by  temporarily  suspending 
the  election  of  a  bishop  to  that  see,  to  give  it  a  sort  of 
minority,  during  which  it  could  recover  its  solvency. 
This  seems  to  have  been  fairly  acceptable  to  Jeremy 
Taylor,  who  received,  not  indeed  an  Episcopal  salary, 
but  considerable  fees  for  his  administration,  and 
Dromore  had  no  bishop  until,  in  1667,  George  Rust 
was  appointed.  The  writ  under  the  privy  seal  sets 
forth  that  the  stewardship  was  given  to  Taylor  "on 
account  of  his  virtue,  wisdom,  and  industry."  He 
seems  to  have  administered  the  revenues  of  the  see 


186  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

with  unusual  dexterity,  and  to  have  placed  Dromore  on 
a  prosperous  footing. 

One  of  the  first  things  he  did  was  to  raise  a  cathedral 
on  the  site  of  the  church  which  the  rebels  had  destroyed. 
He  built  a  small  and  decent  edifice,  not  constructed  in 
the  form  of  a  cross,  but  consisting  of  a  nave  with  a 
choir  which  he  added  at  his  own  expense.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  Dromore,  with  which  Jeremy  Taylor 
was  so  closely  identified,  now  offers  the  visitor  very 
little  indeed  which  can  be  connected  with  him.  The 
small  grey  town  seems  to  contain  not  a  single  house 
which  is  not  long  subsequent  to  Taylor's  death.  The 
two-arched  bridge  over  the  river  may  be  one  of  his 
constructions.  The  palace,  now  (1903)  unoccupied, 
on  the  hill  to  the  north-west  of  the  station,  is  quite 
modern ;  probably  the  ruined  palace  was  not  rebuilt 
in  Jeremy  Taylor's  time.  Even  the  cathedral,  re- 
constructed rather  than  restored,  is  most  disappoint- 
ing, and  a  certain  amount  of  basal  masonry  is  all 
that  has  survived  of  the  church  which  he  built  in 
1661.  We  shall  speak  later  on  of  such  relics  of 
Taylor  as  the  present  cathedral  contains.  It  would 
be  useless  to  search  for  any  traces  of  his  residence 
in  Dromore,  since  it  is  certain  that  he  administered 
the  little  diocese  from  his  apartments  in  Hillsborough 
Castle. 

We  hear  extremely  little  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  family 
life  in  Ireland.  His  son  Edward,  perhaps  his  only 
son  by  his  wife  Joanna,  was  buried  at  Lisburn  on 
the  10th  of  March  1661;  he  could  not  have  been 
more  than  five  years  old  at  the  time.  There  is 
evidence  that  through  the  year  1661  Taylor  was 
making  what  proved  a  hopeless  struggle  to  keep  up 


vi.]  DROMORE  1ST 

his  intimacy  with  his  old  English  friends.  It  is  a 
very  pathetic  fact  that  after  this  date  their  names 
disappear  from  his  correspondence.  The  distance 
between  Ulster  and  London  was  great,  and  methods  of 
communication  were  primitive  and  slow.  The  new 
conditions  introduced  into  English  life  by  the  Restora- 
tion gave  every  one  a  great  deal  to  think  about ;  leisure 
was  restricted,  and  business  vastly  increased.  When 
Jeremy  Taylor  went  over  to  London  to  welcome 
Charles  II.,  he  had  renewed  his  friendship  with  his 
old  patron,  Lord  Hatton  of  Kirby,  and  many  memories 
had  been  awakened  in  his  bosom.  When  he  returned  to 
Ireland  he  hoped  that  Lord  Hatton,  although  time  and 
misfortune  had  greatly  changed  him,  would  continue 
their  former  correspondence,  but  the  peer  had  other 
matters  on  his  mind.  Taylor  tried  to  fancy  that  his 
own  importunate  letters  had  "  some  way  or  other  mis- 
carried," but  Lord  Hatton  was  obstinately  mute.  "If 
I  might  have  leave,  and  knew  how,  whither,  and  in 
what  circumstances  to  address  my  letters  to  your 
Lordship,  so  that  they  might  come  readily  to  your 
hand,"  the  bishop  wrote  on  the  23rd  of  November,  "I 
would  write  often,  for  though  I  be  a  useless  person, 
yet  nobody  loves  and  honours  my  dear  Lord  Hatton 
so  much  as  I  do  " ;  but  Ireland  was  a  long  way  off,  and 
he  was  not  encouraged  to  persevere. 

Nor  was  his  experience  any  better  with  a  dearer  and 
a  better  friend,  Evelyn,  to  whom  Jeremy  Taylor  wrote 
in  the  course  of  the  same  week.  "  I  pray  you  let  me 
hear  from  you  as  often  as  you  can,  for  you  will  very 
much  oblige  me  if  you  will  continue  to  love  me  still." 
He  confesses  "  I  am  so  full  of  public  concerns  and  the 
troubles  of  business  in  my  diocese,  that  I  cannot  yet 


188  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

have  leisure  to  think  of  much  of  my  old  delightful 
employment "  of  writing  letters  to  Evelyn.  But  "  I 
hope  I  have  brought  my  affairs  almost  to  a  consis- 
tence," and  then,  surely,  the  friends  may  begin  again 
on  the  former  pleasant  footing  of  mutual  correspon- 
dence and  intimacy.  Evelyn  sends  him  some  printed 
tracts,  but  no  more  letters,  and  he  too  drops  noiselessly 
out  of  the  affectionate  bishop's  life.  It  is  the  same 
with  "worthy  Mr.  Thurland,"  although  Taylor  tries 
to  excite  him  by  the  transmission  of  "  my  love  and 
dear  regards."  He  had  to  be  content  with  new  faces 
and  the  Irish  intimacies ;  a  curtain  fell  between 
England  and  his  home-sickness.  It  was  not  that  the 
hearts  there  had  grown  cold  to  him;  but  he  was  as 
distant  from  their  interests  then,  as  he  would  be  from 
ours  to-day  in  Madagascar  or  the  Falkland  Islands,  and 
he  had  to  be  content,  like  exiles  all  the  world  over, 
with  the  conviction  that  his  friends  would  still  love 
him — if  they  could  only  recollect  him. 

Jeremy  Taylor  was  now  recognised  as  by  far  the  finest 
orator  in  Ireland,  and  was  indispensable  upon  great  occa- 
sions. For  his  sermon,  preached  at  the  opening  of 
Parliament  on  the  8th  of  May  1661,  he  received  the 
thanks  of  both  Houses,  and  its  publication  was  ordered. 
The  preacher  hesitated  to  obey ;  but  when  it  was 
represented  to  him  that  what  he  had  so  brilliantly 
said  would  otherwise  fade  from  the  memory  of 
those  who  listened  to  it,  he  replied,  "I  would  not 
shed  that  chalice  which  my  own  hands  have  newly 
filled  with  waters  issuing  from  the  fountains  of 
salvation,"  and  consented.  In  the  preface  to  this 
sermon  he  complains  that  his  "  eyes  are  almost  grown 
old  with  seeing  the  horrid  mischiefs  which  come  from 


vi.]  DROMORE  189 

rebellion  and  disobedience."  But  so  far  as  bowing  the 
head  goes,  he  is  determined  to  be  firm.  He  will  not 
be  one  of  those  weak  brethren  "  who  plead  for  tolera- 
tion and  compliance,"  and  he  lets  it  be  known,  in  the 
clearest  possible  tones,  that  he  means  to  impress  the 
law  against  the  Presbyterian  "wild  asses  in  the 
wilderness."  His  sermon  at  the  opening  of  Parliament 
is  one  of  his  cleverest  and  most  trenchant  minor 
writings,  admirably  colloquial,  and  even,  at  times, 
humorous.  The  line  of  argument  is  that  there  can  be 
no  happiness  and  no  prosperity  for  the  troubles  of 
Ireland,  unless  she  is  docile.  It  is  the  duty  of 
Parliament  to  enforce  docility.  "God  hath  put  a 
royal  mantle,  and  fastened  it  with  a  golden  clasp, 
upon  the  shoulder  of  the  King;  and  He  hath  given 
you  the  judge's  robe ;  the  King  holds  the  sceptre,  and 
he  hath  now  permitted  you  to  touch  the  golden  ball." 
He  promises  that  the  bishops  will  be  firm  in  doctrine, 
if  the  Houses  will  be  equally  firm  in  law,  and  together 
they  shall  proceed  to  the  salvation  of  Ireland.  Above 
all  things,  he  deprecates  "a  pitiful,  a  disheartened,  a 
discouraged  clergy,  that  waters  the  ground  with  a 
waterpot,  here  and  there  a  little."  The  sermon  is  a 
very  strong  document,  which  must  have  encouraged 
the  government  greatly  in  its  task.  We  have  only  to 
read  it  to  comprehend  the  sensation  which  it  produced 
and  the  enthusiasm  which  it  awakened.  It  marks  the 
moment  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  highest  complacency  about 
his  work  in  Ulster,  when  he  was  flushed  with  his 
original  triumph,  and  had  not  experienced  the  reaction. 
Another  publication  of  1661  was  the  Via  Intelli- 
gentice,  an  expansion  of  an  address  first  delivered  to 
the  University  of  Dublin,  and  afterwards,  in  a  modified 


190  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

form,  to  the  clergy  of  Taylor's  diocese  during  a 
metropolitan  visitation  which  the  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  the  aged  John  Bramhall,  made  in  the  summer 
of  1661.  Taylor  had  now  collected  his  imported 
clergy  from  England,  and  they  rallied  about  him  and 
about  the  Primate  in  a  highly  gratifying  manner. 
There  was,  we  are  told,  "a  clergy-show,"  and  after  it  a 
banquet  was  given  by  Taylor,  probably  at  Hills- 
borough,  in  honour  of  Bramhall,  and  the  party  is 
described  as  an  extremely  successful  one.  The  newly 
appointed  incumbents  learned  to  know  one  another, 
and  to  see  their  bishop  in  the  light  of  an  assiduous 
and  generous  host.  They  might  also  admire,  not 
without  a  touch  of  awe,  the  "stupendous  parts,  and 
mighty  diligence,  and  unusual  zeal "  of  the  not  a  little 
formidable  Primate,  who  was  fighting  still,  "only 
mortality  was  too  hard  for  him,"  and  years  beginning 
to  tell  upon  the  fierceness  of  his  energies.  Before 
the  "excellent  dinner"  was  served,  Jeremy  Taylor 
preached  to  the  assembled  Primate  and  clergy,  and 
all  the  gentry  that  had  come  to  his  table,  a  sermon 
which  he  presently  published  and  distributed. 

If  1661  was  a  very  full  year  in  the  history  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  1662  is  marked  only  by  anecdotes. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  he  was  inclined  to  a  moderate 
credulity  about  the  spirit-world.  He  has  been  un- 
justly accused  of  believing  grossly  in  ghosts  ;  it  would 
be  more  just  to  say  that  he  was  in  favour  of  psychical 
research.  He  was  now  thrown  into  the  midst  of  a 
very  superstitious  population,  and  he  was  by  no  means 
helpless,  though  vividly  curious,  in  presence  of  their 
tales  of  wonder.  Late  on  the  night  of  Michaelmas 
1662,  a  porter  called  Francis  Taverner,  who  had  been 


vi.]  DROMORE  191 

at  Hillsborough,  was  riding  to  his  house  near  Belfast, 
when  he  came  to  the  Drum  bridge,  which  crosses  the 
Lagan  at  Drumbeg.  He  was  "  a  lusty  proper  stout 
felloAv,"  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  At  the  foot 
of  the  bridge  his  horse  stopped  suddenly;  Taverner 
dismounted,  urged  the  beast  forward,  and  as  he  started 
again,  was  aware  of  two  shadowy  horsemen  who  rode 
beside  him,  like  the  great  Twin  Brethren  by  the  shore 
of  Lake  Regillus.  At  the  same  moment  a  third  man, 
in  a  white  coat,  was  at  his  elbow,  and,  turning, 
Taverner  perceived  that  this  resembled  one  James 
Haddock,  who  had  died  five  years  before.  Taverner 
asked  the  apparition  who  in  the  name  of  God  he  was. 
Haddock  told  his  name,  and  bade  him  not  be  afraid, 
reminding  him  of  a  trivial  circumstance,  how  Taverner 
had  brought  some  nuts  to  Haddock  and  to  the  two 
friends  who  were  now  noiselessly  riding  on  before 
them.  A  brief  conversation  brought  the  party  to  four 
cross  roads,  where  the  path  from  Dunmurray  to 
Lismoyne  crosses  the  Belfast  road.  Here  the  ghost 
desired  the  young  man  to  turn  aside  with  him,  but 
Taverner  would  not,  and,  galloping  on,  left  him  there. 
Whereupon,  "  there  arose  a  great  wind,  and  withal  he 
heard  very  hideous  screeches  and  noises,  to  his  amaze- 
ment." But  presently  morning  broke,  the  cocks  crew, 
and,  slipping  off  his  horse,  Taverner  knelt  in  prayer  to 
God,  and  so  came  safely  to  Belfast. 

Next  night,  as  he  sat  by  the  fire  with  his  wife,  the 
ghost  of  Haddock  appeared  to  him  again,  and  sent  a 
vague  message  about  a  will  and  a  lease  to  a  certain 
widow,  Eleanor  Welsh,  at  Malone,  a  hamlet  close  by, 
where  Taverner's  family  lived.  This  message  would 
have  upset  the  whole  neighbourhood,  and  Taverner 


192  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

could  not  bring  himself  to  give  it.  Night  after  night 
the  ghost  appeared,  more  and  more  importunate  and 
angry,  now  when  the  porter  was  sitting  at  the  hearth, 
now  when  he  was  in  bed.  It  was  never  visible  to 
Mrs.  Taverner,  although  she  was  a  terrified  witness  of 
her  husband's  agitation.  For  a  whole  month  James 
Haddock,  in  a  white  coat,  haunted  the  unfortunate 
young  man,  who,  to  escape  from  the  visitation,  left 
his  home  in  the  hills,  and  took  refuge  with  a  shoe- 
maker in  Belfast ;  but  all  in  vain.  The  story  gradually 
filled  the  whole  country-side,  and  reached  the  bishop, 
who  was  holding  his  court  in  Dromore. 

Thomas  Alcock,  Jeremy  Taylor's  secretary,  who 
has  preserved  the  story,  was  instructed  to  send  for 
Taverner,  as  the  bishop  was  extremely  interested  in 
what  he  called  "this  strange  scene  of  Providence." 
He  held  a  judicial  inquiry  at  Dromore,  and  cross- 
examined,  not  Taverner  only,  but  various  other 
witnesses  who  were  collected  for  the  purpose.  The 
young  porter's  evidence  was  not  shaken,  and  Taylor 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  a  genuine  instance 
of  the  apparition  of  the  souls  of  the  dead.  Lady 
Conway,  a  learned  blue-stocking  whose  headaches 
were  among  the  most  celebrated  indispositions  of  that 
day,  and  who  affected  a  universal  intellectual  curiosity, 
asked  to  have  the  case  retried  for  her  benefit  at  Hills- 
borough,  which  Taylor,  taking  Taverner  and  all  the 
witnesses  over  from  Dromore,  actually  did  before  a 
fashionable  company.  The  bishop  then  supplied 
Taverner  with  a  set  of  questions,  which  he  was  to 
put  to  the  ghost,  if  it  appeared  again ;  and  at  night 
sent  him  off  to  Lisburn,  where  he  was  put  up  in  Lord 
Con  way's  house.  There  Taverner  and  his  brother  were 


vi.]  DROMORE  193 

in  the  courtyard,  when  the  former  saw  the  spectre  in 
its  white  coat  come  over  the  wall  to  them.  Taverner 
plucked  up  courage  and  asked  his  set  of  questions,  but 
the  ghost  "gave  him  no  answer,  but  crawled  on  his 
hands  and  feet  over  the  wall  again,  and  so  vanished 
in  white,  with  a  most  melodious  harmony."  And  that 
was  the  close  of  the  incident.  But  that  it  was  a  true 
story  of  a  real  ghost,  "  all  wise  and  good  men  did 
believe,  especially  the  bishop,  and  Dr.  Rust,  the  Dean 
of  Connor." 

We  possess  the  questions  which  Jeremy  Taylor 
proposed  to  the  ghost,  and  they  are  of  a  nature  to 
suggest  that  in  his  judgment  it  might  be  a  spirit  of 
evil  masquerading  in  Haddock's  shape.  Among  the 
questions  was  this:  "Why  do  you  appear  in  so  small 
a  matter,  when  so  many  widows  and  orphans  in  the 
world  are  defrauded  of  greater  matters  ? "  This  is 
exactly  in  the  spirit  of  Huxley.  On  the  other  hand, 
"  How  are  you  regimented  in  the  other  world  1 "  would 
have  commended  itself  to  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers.  It 
is  odd  that  Defoe,  in  his  Secrets  of  the  Invisible  World, 
roundly  scolded  Jeremy  Taylor  for  these  queries, 
which  he  considered  "needless  and  impertinent"; 
while  that  earnest  believer  in  witches  and  goblins, 
Increase  Mather,  was  even  more  deeply  scandalised 
at  Taylor's  levity.  We  see  in  his  questions  to 
Taverner's  tormentor,  not  exactly  disbelief  in  the 
reality  of  the  apparition,  but  undoubtedly  that  hesi- 
tancy which  led  him,  in  the  Dissuasion  from  Popery, 
to  point  out  how  dangerous  credulity  is,  and  how 
unlikely  it  must  be  that  God  should  give  devils  an 
opportunity  to  "abuse  the  world  with  notices  and 
revelations  of  their  own." 

N 


194  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Another  wild  tale  came  before  him  in  the  adventure 
of  a  neatherd  who  was  in  his  service  at  Portmore,  and 
who  was  "  amazed  "  by  the  apparition  of  an  old  woman, 
who  pursued  him  for  nearly  nine  months.  In  this 
case  the  ghost  was  also  seen  and  followed  by  the 
neatherd's  little  dog.  The  old  woman  had  buried 
twenty-eight  shillings  in  her  lifetime,  and  wished  that 
this  money,  accompanied  by  an  extremely  tart  reproof 
for  his  wicked  and  dissolute  conduct,  should  go  to  one 
of  her  sons.  At  last,  it  would  seem  that  the  man 
consented  to  search  for  the  money,  which  was  buried 
under  a  hearth-stone  "beyond  the  Bann  Water," 
whereat  the  old  woman  was  so  rejoiced  that  she  bade 
him  lift  her  in  his  arms.  He  did  so,  and  found  her  as 
light  as  a  bag  of  feathers;  whereupon  she  vanished 
forever  in  a  most  delicate  music.  Unfortunately,  we 
are  not  told  whether  the  twenty-eight  shillings  were 
discovered  under  the  hearth-stone.  In  this  story,  also, 
both  Jeremy  Taylor  and  old  Lady  Conway  took  the 
acutest  interest,  but  Alcock  neglects  to  report  the 
bishop's  opinion  on  this  case. 

As  soon  as  his  clergy  were  settled  in  the  diocese, 
Taylor  collected  them  at  Lisburn,  and  earnestly  exhorted 
them  on  their  personal  and  public  deportment.  His 
words  betray  his  cordial  desire  for  reconciliation  with 
all  classes  of  his  flock.  The  incumbents,  so  embarrass- 
ingly deposited  in  unwelcome  propinquity  to  obstruc- 
tive parishioners,  were  above  all  things  to  "remember 
that  discretion  is  the  mistress  of  all  graces."  They 
were  to  discourage  useless  disputations ;  they  were  to 
devote  themselves  to  the  spirit  of  meekness,  and  to 
endeavour  to  gain  over  their  flock  "by  the  impor- 
tunity of  wise  discourses."  They  were  to  "strive 


vi.]  DROMORE  195 

to  get  the  love  of  the  congregation,"  yet  "let  it 
not  degenerate  into  popularity."  As  High  Church 
Anglicans  they  were  to  be  careful  to  introduce  no 
needless  rites  and  gestures  which  would  be  offensive 
to  parishioners,  but  to  keep  to  what  was  required  by 
the  Church  and  established  by  law.  They  were  to 
be  most  particular  not  to  incense  the  congregation 
by  exasperating  or  scolding  them,  nor  to  use  irritating 
forms  of  language,  "  fantastical  or  schismatical  terms." 
They  must  remember  that  they  are  ministering  among 
persons,  who  from  ignorance  or  prejudice  are  ready 
to  be  troublesome,  and  they  must  give  no  occasion  to 
disturbance.  If  the  minister  finds  in  his  congregation 
a  contentious  person,  he  is  not  to  dispute  with  him ;  he 
is  to  employ  the  man's  zeal  "  in  something  that  is  good, 
let  it  be  pressed  to  fight  against  sin."  Nothing  could 
be  gentler  or  wiser  than  this  advice,  nothing  more 
evangelical. 

But  Jeremy  Taylor,  while  earnestly  recommending 
meekness,  would  not  corrupt  it  into  cowardice.  The 
clergy  are  not  to  forget  that  they  are  to  rule  and  to 
instruct,  and  that  "  he  that  receives  from  the  people 
what  he  shall  teach  them,  is  like  a  nurse  that  asks 
of  her  child  what  physic  she  shall  give  him."  They 
are  not  to  suffer  the  common  people  to  prattle  about 
religious  questions.  They  must  see  that  no  person 
in  their  parishes  is  ignorant  of  the  foundations  of 
faith,  but  they  are  forbidden  to  destroy  their  duty 
by  "unreasonable  compliance  with  the  humours"  of 
the  flock.  They  are  to  check  severely  the  common 
fault  of  the  sectaries,  who  were  wont,  it  seems,  after  a 
good  dinner,  to  sit  down  and  backbite  their  neighbours. 
In  short,  the  clergy  of  Down  and  Connor  were  to  be 


196  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

mild  and  yet  firm,  tender  disciplinarians  and  constitu- 
tional rulers.  It  was  a  counsel  of  perfection,  and  little 
time  went  by  before  Jeremy  Taylor  and  George  Rust, 
who  was  his  right-hand  man,  had  a  painful  awakening 
from  their  dream  of  a  pacified  and  grateful  Ulster. 
For  two  years,  from  the  summer  of  1661  to  that  of 
1663,  all  seems  to  have  been  tolerably  calm  in  the 
dioceses,  and  then  a  storm  of  Presbyterian  recusancy 
broke  out  again. 

Jeremy  Taylor  became  aware  of  what  was  going 
on  in  the  course  of  a  visitation  to  the  eastern  part 
of  his  diocese.  The  village  of  Killinchy,  on  Strang- 
ford  Lough,  was  the  centre  of  a  disaffection  which 
was  caused  by  a  visit  paid  to  County  Down  by  the 
notorious  adventurer,  Colonel  Thomas  Blood.  This 
man  had  set  no  value  upon  the  religious  life,  but  he 
knew  how  to  play  upon  the  sensibilities  of  fanatics. 
He  pretended  to  be  a  convinced  Presbyterian,  and  he 
was  introduced  to  a  knot  of  the  ejected  ministers  by 
his  brother-in-law,  of  the  name  of  Lecky.  It  is  only 
fair,  however,  to  the  Ulster  Presbyterians  to  say  that, 
though  they  were  in  a  state  of  great  religious  fermenta- 
tion, they  would  have  none  of  Blood  and  his  plot, 
which  was  discovered  in  Dublin  on  the  22nd  of  May, 
and  prevented.  Blood  escaped  to  England,  where  he 
had  a  chequered  career  as  a  rebel  and  a  thief.  But 
all  these  events  greatly  disturbed  opinion  in  Down 
and  Antrim,  and  led  the  government  to  some  arbitrary 
acts.  Taylor  exaggerated  the  danger,  and,  on  the 
llth  of  June,  wrote  in  great  trepidation  to  the  Duke 
of  Ormonde.  He  had  discovered  that  John  Drysdale, 
one  of  the  most  formidable  of  the  ejected  ministers, 
had  returned  from  his  exile  in  Scotland,  and  believed 


vi.]  DROMORE  197 

that  he  was  stirring  up  disaffection.  He  rashly 
arrested  Drysdale,  although  "on  no  particular  charge," 
and  then  asked  the  Duke  for  instructions.  The  Dublin 
government  took  prompt  action ;  all  the  Presbyterian 
ministers  who  could  be  found  in  the  counties  of  Antrim 
and  Down  were  arrested,  and  imprisoned  respectively 
at  Carrickf ergus  and  at  Carlingford.  After  a  consider- 
able period  of  incarceration,  as  no  charge  could  be 
proved  against  them,  they  were  allowed  to  withdraw 
to  Scotland,  and  the  storm  passed  over. 

In  the  new  attitude  which  Jeremy  Taylor  adopted 
to  his  flock  in  1663,  it  is  possible  that  he  was  affected 
by  the  revival  of  zeal  in  England,  of  which  the  Ichabod 
of  Ken,  published  in  this  very  year,  gives  evidence. 
There  was  a  strong  feeling  among  youthful  Anglicans 
that  their  elders  were  not  showing  a  proper  resent- 
ment against  the  "sad  race  of  dissenters."  Taylor 
may  have  been  stirred  by  letters  from  England  to 
show  greater  activity  in  silencing  the  disturbers  of 
the  peace  of  his  diocese. 

The  executive  took  all  the  responsibility  for  these 
acts  of  violence,  but  it  is  impossible  to  overlook  the 
fact  that  it  was  Jeremy  Taylor  who  had  appealed  to  the 
Duke  for  help,  and  that  it  was  he  who  sketched  the 
policy  which  the  Dublin  government  carried  out.  He 
had  appealed  to  the  force  of  the  law  to  remove  the 
ministers,  on  the  ground  that  as  long  as  they  remained 
in  his  diocese  it  would  be  "a  perpetual  seminary  of 
schism  and  discontents,"  and  he  had  roundly  accused 
them  of  being  "all  more  than  consenting "  to  Blood's 
plot.  In  this  last  matter  there  is  evidence  that  he 
was  misinformed,  but  he  has  to  bear  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  results  of  his  grievous  error. 


198  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  perturbations  Archbishop 
Bramhall  died,  on  the  25th  of  June,  and  was  succeeded 
as  Primate  by  Margetson,  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin, 
a  man  of  much  milder  temper,  who  inaugurated  a 
policy  of  conciliation  in  the  northern  provinces.  I 
think  it  probable  that  Jeremy  Taylor  not  merely 
acquiesced  in  this  change,  but  positively  welcomed 
it.  At  Bramhall's  funeral  he  preached  a  sermon 
which,  so  willing  are  readers  to  find  what  they  really 
bring  with  them,  has  been  mentioned  as  an  instance  of 
Taylor's  harsh  and  domineering  temper,  and  of  the 
tormented  conditions  of  his  mind.  I  can  only  say  that 
I  have  searched  this  brilliant  performance  in  vain  for 
any  such  evidence  of  bias.  The  Funeral  Sermon  on 
Archbishop  Bramhall  is  a  composition  in  Taylor's  most 
careful  manner ;  it  is  partly  a  rhapsody  on  the  sure  and 
certain  hope  of  resurrection,  and  partly  a  very  skilful 
and  picturesque  biography.  The  former  section  is  curi- 
ously reminiscent  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  then  recent 
Urn-Burial;  the  preacher  "will  not  now  insist  upon 
the  story  of  the  rising  bones  seen  every  year  in  Egypt, 
nor  the  pretences  of  the  chemists  that  they  from  the 
ashes  of  flowers  can  reproduce  the  same  beauties  in 
colour  and  figure,"  but  he  runs  his  parallels  through 
"  night  and  day,  the  sun  returning  to  the  same  point 
of  east,  every  change  of  species,  the  eagle  renewing  her 
youth,  and  the  snake  her  skin,  the  silkworm  and  the 
swallows,  winter  and  summer,  the  fall  and  spring,"  all 
of  them  symbols  and  reflections  of  the  glorious  mystery 
of  resurrection.  We  seem  to  be  back  again  at  Golden 
Grove,  so  graceful  is  the  imagery,  so  ethereal  the  verbal 
music. 

He  turns  from  these  contemplations  to  a  portrait  of 


vi.]  DROMORE  199 

the  great  man  whom  they  have  met  to  bury.  He 
dwells  on  his  energy,  his  intellect,  his  virtue ;  he 
insists,  with  indignant  zeal,  upon  Bramhall's  heroic 
passion  for  the  Church,  and  upon  all  that  he  was 
called  upon  to  suffer.  He  was  driven  into  poverty  and 
exile  by  that  wild  storm  "by  which  great  Strafford 
and  Canterbury  fell " ;  he  returned  to  Ireland  and  to 
honour  at  an  hour  so  late  that  neither  the  King  nor 
Ormonde,  "the  King's  great  vicegerent,"  could  reap 
from  his  restoration  the  whole  benefit  they  had  antici- 
pated. For  Bramhall,  with  all  his  greatness,  was  then 
already  old  and  broken.  "It  is  true  he  was  in  the 
declension  of  his  age  and  health.  But  his  very  ruins 
were  goodly.  And  they  who  saw  the  broken  heaps  of 
Pompey's  Theatre,  and  the  crushed  obelisks,  and  the  old 
face  of  beauteous  Philenium,  could  not  but  admire  the 
disordered  glories  of  such  magnificent  structures, 
which  were  venerable  in  their  very  dust."  In  dilating 
upon  these  qualities,  it  must  have  been  a  great  temp- 
tation to  Jeremy  Taylor  to  denounce  the  Presbyterians, 
whose  tempestuous  resistance  had  embittered  Bram- 
hall's last  hours,  and  who  pursued  him  beyond  the  grave 
with  their  hatred.  But  not  a  word  of  anger  escapes 
the  preacher ;  he  does  not  so  much  as  hint  at  any  trouble 
in  the  northern  dioceses.  The  Funeral  Sermon  on 
Bramhall  is  perfect  in  dignity  and  Christian  reserve. 
It  appears  to  me  that  in  later  times  it  has  been  read  too 
little  and  too  carelessly.  It  is  the  one  piece  of  litera- 
ture produced  by  Jeremy  Taylor  in  Ireland  which  is 
entirely  worthy  of  his  reputation  as  an  artist.  It  is 
the  one  effusion  of  those  agitated  years  which  shows 
no  decline  from  the  lofty  standard  of  his  imagination 
and  intellect. 


200  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  principal  literary  occupation,  how- 
ever, during  the  closing  years  of  his  life  was  the 
composition  of  an  extremely  lengthy  Dissuasion  from 
Popery  addressed  to  the  people  of  Ireland.  He  tells  us 
that  his  brethren,  the  prelates  of  that  country,  set  this 
task  upon  him,  and  that  at  first  he  was  unwilling  to 
adventure  upon  it.  But,  having  once  taken  it  up,  he 
seemed  incapable  of  dropping  it.  The  viscous  task 
adhered  to  his  fingers,  and  one  whose  memory  was 
so  accurately  stored  with  patristic  instances  needed 
but  the  very  smallest  intellectual  stress  to  continue 
the  disquisition  almost  indefinitely.  A  first — and 
surely  a  sufficient — instalment  appeared  in  quarto 
in  1664;  but  Jeremy  Taylor  could  not  breakthrough 
the  glutinous  chain  of  his  animadversions,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  produce  a  Second  Part,  being  a  Vindication 
of  the  First,  and  further  Reproof  of  Roman  Error. 
This  he  had  sent  to  press  when  he  died,  and  it  appeared 
in  the  autumn  of  1667.  Had  his  life  been  prolonged, 
we  might  now  possess  a  Third  Part,  and  a  Fourth. 
This  is  the  most  languid  and  unreadable  of  Jeremy 
Taylor's  writings.  It  is  deformed  by  patronising 
remarks  about  "the  poor  deluded  Irish,"  and  in  par- 
ticular goes  out  of  its  way  to  attack  the  use  and  study 
of  the  Irish  language,  which  Taylor  thought  barbarous 
and  deforming,  and  wished  to  prohibit.  His  entire  want 
of  sympathy  with  the  Celtic  mind  is  illustrated  by  the 
agony  of  distress  into  which  he  is  thrown  by  certain 
instances  of  its  "  miserable  superstition  and  blindness." 
In  every  sentence  we  are  conscious  of  the  chasm  which 
divided  him  from  all  sections  of  his  flock,  of  what 
Matthew  Arnold  might  call  "the  profound  sense  of 
estrangement "  from  them,  "  immense,  incurable,  fatal." 


vi.]  DROMORE  201 

A  recent  learned  writer  on  Jeremy  Taylor  has 
called  A  Dissuasion  from  Popery  "  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting of  his  writings."  The  interest  which  Mr. 
Alexander  Gordon  finds,  must  reside,  I  think,  solely 
in  the  definite  statement  of  the  dead-lock  existing 
between  the  old  religion  of  Ireland  and  the  new,  and 
that  is  surely  sufficiently  contained  in  the  dedication 
to  the  Duke  of  Ormonde.  The  rest  of  this  huge  treatise 
we  must  not  allow  partiality  for  Taylor,  or  sympathy 
for  his  isolated  position,  to  make  us  attempt  to  admire. 
The  antipathy  it  displays  to  the  people  of  Ireland,  its 
incurable  Philistinism  and  ignorance  of  the  Celtic 
temperament,  are  not  less  disappointing  because  they 
were  shared  by  the  majority  of  Englishmen  in  that 
dreary  period.  And,  as  for  Jeremy  Taylor  himself,  so 
far  from  thinking  it  "  interesting  "  that  he  should  spend 
his  last  years  almost  exclusively  in  this  multiplication 
of  insulting  diatribes  against  the  ancestral  religion 
of  his  country,  we  should  regard  his  labour  mournfully 
as  a  cardinal  example  of  that  objectless  waste  of  energy 
which  Coleridge  deplored  as  the  worst  of  misfortunes : — 

"  With  lips  unbrightened,  wreathless  brow,  I  stroll ; 
And  would  you  learn  the  spells  that  drowse  my  soul  ? 
Work  without  Hope  draws  nectar  in  a  sieve, 
And  Hope  without  an  object  cannot  live." 

Meanwhile  the  bishop  was  carrying  on  his  campaign 
against  the  Presbyterians  of  his  diocese,  and  in  this 
he  was  aided  by  Sir  Richard  Kennedy,  who  acted  in 
Ulster  as  Judge  of  Assize.  This  lawyer,  who  was  one 
of  the  Barons  of  the  Exchequer  for  Ireland,  supported 
Taylor  in  all  his  decisions,  and  in  fanatical  zeal  even 
went  beyond  the  bishop's  desires.  Kennedy  "infinitely 


202  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

discountenanced  and  punished"  the  Nonconformists, 
and  showed  an  intemperate  activity  in  all  the  affairs 
of  the  Church.  He  went  to  such  extremities  that  he 
had  to  be  checked  by  orders  from  the  Privy  Council, 
which  became  alarmed  at  the  reports  of  his  severity. 
Among  the  gentry  of  Ulster,  Lord  Massereene  was 
solitary  in  his  efforts  for  peace  and  general  indulgence, 
although  others,  such  as  Lady  Ards  and  Lord  Dun- 
cannon,  interceded  for  personal  friends  of  their  own. 
By  the  early  months  of  1664  "the  generality  of  the 
ministers  of  the  North  were  either  banished,  imprisoned 
or  driven  into  corners,"  but  the  anger  of  the  populace 
was  so  great  that  the  Duke  of  Ormonde  found  it  wise 
to  insist  upon  a  slackening  of  the  persecution.  Jeremy 
Taylor  "stormed  at  this  vague  favour  for  noncon- 
formity," and  encouraged  Kennedy  to  pursue  his  work. 
But  the  Irish  Primate  had  determined  to  be  "civil  to 
the  brethren  of  Down,"  and  Sir  Richard  Kennedy  was 
felt  to  be  so  embarrassing  to  the  government  at  Dublin, 
that  he  was  urged  to  take  occasion  of  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant's going  over  to  England  to  accompany  him,  and 
not  to  return  to  Ireland.  Jeremy  Taylor  found  him- 
self deserted  and  solitary. 

On  the  25th  of  May  1664  he  wrote  a  pressing  letter 
to  his  old  friend  Sheldon,  now  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, imploring  to  be  translated  to  a  less  arduous  see. 
Sheldon,  it  seems,  had  said  that  Jeremy  Taylor  him- 
self was  the  only  hindrance  to  his  being  removed  to 
an  English  bishopric.  Taylor  protested  that  he  could 
not  conjecture  what  the  Primate  meant,  but  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  his  reputation  for  lack  of  suppleness  and 
moderation  had  brought  him  into  disgrace  with  the 
Court.  No  one  appreciated  his  painful  zeal,  no  one 


vi.]  DROMORE  203 

had  wished  him  to  be  so  stern  and  unbending  to  his 
clergy.  His  appeal  to  be  solaced  by  a  see  in  some  other 
part  of  England  or  Ireland  is  pathetic.  He  writes : — 

"  I  humbly  desire  that  your  grace  will  not  wholly  lay  me 
aside,  and  cast  off  all  thoughts  of  removing  me.  For  no  man 
shall  with  a  greater  diligence,  humility  imd  observance  en- 
deavour to  make  up  his  other  disabilities  than  I  shall.  The 
case  is  so  that  the  country  does  not  agree  with  my  health  as 
it  hath  done  formerly,  till  the  last  Michaelmas  ;  and  if  your 
grace  be  not  willing  I  should  die  immaturely,  I  shall  still  hope 
you  will  bring  ine  to  or  near  yourself  once  more.  But  to  God 
and  to  your  grace  I  humbly  submit  the  whole  affair,  humbly 
desiring  a  kind  return  to  this  letter,  and  the  comfort  of  a  little 
hope." 

But  Charles  II.  seems  to  have  been  told  that  the  Pres- 
byterians of  Ulster  "had  been  sufferers  for  the  King," 
and  Jeremy  Taylor's  last  chance  of  promotion  or  even 
of  translation  passed  away.  He  had  pleased  nobody ; 
his  flock  were  persuaded  that  he  was  cruel  and  unjust, 
and  the  government  regarded  him  as  dangerous  and 
embarrassing.  For  the  rest  of  his  life,  as  it  was  indi- 
cated to  him  again,  he  must  make  the  best  he  could 
of  Down  and  Connor.  He  buried  himself  in  literature, 
and  resigned  himself  to  inevitable  disappointment. 
From  this  time  forward  his  animal  spirits  seem  to 
have  decayed.  He  had  lost  his  hope,  and  with  it 
went  his  energy.  To  this  moment  probably  belongs 
the  curious  story  preserved  by  Michael  Lort,  the 
antiquary,  that  Taylor  desired  his  secretary  to  procure 
all  the  copies  of  his  Liberty  of  Prophesying  which  could 
be  found,  and  made  a  bonfire  of  them  in  the  market- 
place of  Dromore.  It  was  not,  indeed,  like  Jeremy 
Taylor  to  destroy  one  of  his  own  works — although 
it  may  be  noticed  that  Liberty  of  Prophesying  is  prac- 


204  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

tically  the  only  one  of  all  his  didactic  books  which 
he  did  not  include  in  the  list  of  modern  English 
divinity  drawn  up  at  Graham's  request  in  1660 — but, 
if  the  tale  is  true,  it  shows  a  repudiation  of  his  early 
theories  of  toleration  which  is  melancholy  in  itself, 
and  not  out  of  keeping  with  his  distressing  implaca- 
bility as  a  bishop.  The  iron  had  entered  into  his 
soul,  and  he  was  no  longer  the  Jeremy  Taylor  whose 
patient  energy  and  active  sympathy  we  have  loved. 

We  hear  little  more  of  him  in  a  public  capacity. 
He  had  a  farm  of  forty  acres  at  Magheralin,  probably 
the  same  which  had  been  allotted  to  him  through  Sir 
William  Petty's  offices  when  he  first  arrived  in  Ireland. 
He  devoted  himself  to  this  estate,  and  traces  of 
his  beneficence  remain  in  the  whole  district  around 
it.  Traditions  of  him  are  said  to  be  still  extant  in 
several  of  the  surrounding  villages,  at  Soldierstown, 
at  Derriaghy,  at  Magheragall,  at  Ballinderry.  The 
places  where  Jeremy  Taylor  is  said  to  have  "  resided  " 
are  numerous  in  the  south-west  of  Antrim  and  the 
north-west  of  Down.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
wherever  a  man  of  such  prominence  spent  a  single 
night  would  easily  be  quoted  in  tradition  as  one  of 
his  "  residences."  He  probably  lived  chiefly  at  Hills- 
borough  until  April  1663,  when  Colonel  Arthur  Hill 
died,  an  event  which  robbed  the  bishop  of  one  of 
his  few  close  friends.  He  certainly  still  had  a  home 
in  or  near  Portmore,  and  when  he  left  Hillsborough, 
the  house  he  had  built  in  the  Castle  Street  of 
Lisburn,  opposite  the  doors  of  the  cathedral,  would  be 
his  official  residence.  Everything  seems  to  point  to 
a  rapid  decline,  in  vitality  during  the  last  three  years 
of  his  disenchanted  life.  He  had  been  an  enthusiast 


vr.]  DROMORE  205 

for  liberty  and  love,  but  circumstances  had  forced  him 
to  adopt  the  guise  of  a  tyrant.  He  had  lived  for  the 
affection  of  his  friends,  and  he  found  himself  solitary 
in  a  strange  land.  When  the  emotions  of  a  sensitive 
man  cease  to  have  an  object,  he  soon  pines  away. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  interest  in  architecture  was  notice- 
able, and  as  a  builder  he  stamped  his  mark  upon  his 
diocese.  Unhappily,  fire  and  the  restorer  have  left 
but  few  examples  of  his  art  for  us  to  judge  of  its  merit. 
Until  1902,  however,  one  specimen  of  Taylor  as  an 
architect  still  survived  intact.  On  a  little  eminence 
south  of  the  road  which  winds  through  the  parish  of 
Ballinderry,  in  Antrim,  four  miles  north  of  Moira,  was 
to  be  seen  a  deserted  church,  white-washed,  with  an 
empty  bell-cot,  its  chancel-end  loaded  with  ivy,  its  only 
remarkable  feature  being  a  row  of  circular-headed 
mullion  windows.  This  was  the  shell  of  that  church 
which  Jeremy  Taylor  started  building  in  1665,  and 
to  furnish  which  he  dismantled  of  its  oak  fittings  the 
old  chapel  on  Lough  Beg,  where  he  had  officiated  while 
he  was  at  Portmore.  He  brought  slates  for  its  roof 
from  Aberdovey,  in  Wales,  and  he  seems  to  have  spent  a 
good  deal  of  money  in  making  it  a  really  pretty  specimen 
of  belated  Jacobean  church  architecture.  It  was  in 
danger  of  falling  into  complete  ruin,  when  Mr.  F.  J. 
Biggar,  of  Ardrie,  Belfast,  brought  its  rare  interest  to 
the  notice  of  Mrs.  Walkington  of  Ballinderry,  who  had 
it  very  carefully  restored  by  Mr.  W.  J.  Fennell,  under 
the  inspection  of  Sir  Thomas  Drew.  No  new  feature 
was  introduced,  and  the  work  was  carried  out  with 
the  most  conservative  care.  It  was  reconsecrated,  in 
October  1902,  by  Dr.  Welland,  the  present  Bishop  of 
Down,  Connor  and  Dromore,  and  it  is  by  far  the  most 


206  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

interesting  personal  relic  of  Jeremy  Taylor  which 
exists  in  Ireland. 

There  is  little  more  to  be  recorded  of  his  life. 
About  three  years  after  the  death  of  Arthur  Hill,  he 
became  engaged  in  a  vexatious  dispute  with  the 
Colonel's  son,  Moses  Hill,  as  to  certain  revenues  from 
the  Castlereagh  estate,  which  Jeremy  Taylor  had 
enjoyed,  and  to  which  he  said  that  he  possessed  a 
right  as  bishop.  In  this  Lord  Conway  agreed  with 
him,  but  Moses  Hill  protested  that  these  had  merely 
been  paid  to  Taylor  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  and 
personal  friendship.  A  lawsuit  was  the  result,  which 
came  before  both  Houses  of  the  Irish  Parliament ;  the 
rents  were  sequestered  and  the  suit  was  still  pending 
when  the  bishop  died.  This  was  a  sad  conclusion  to 
the  long  and  harmonious  friendship  between  Jeremy 
Taylor  and  the  house  of  Hillsborough.  By  this  time 
it  is  evident  that  Taylor  was  irritable  with  failing 
strength.  Until  the  autumn  of  1663,  however,  Ireland 
had  suited  his  bodily  health,  and  the  conjecture  that 
he  fell  a  victim  to  the  supposed  swampiness  of  his 
dwelling  rests  on  no  evidence.  As  long  as  he  resided 
on  the  heights  of  Hillsborough  he  was  in  one  of  the 
wholesomest  spots  in  the  county  of  Down.  Later  on, 
in  February  1666,  when  all  Ireland,  and  England  too, 
was  ringing  with  the  strange,  half-miraculous  cures 
which  Valentine  Greatrakes,  "the  Stroker,"  was  effect- 
ing by  a  kind  of  massage,  Lord  Conway  wished  Jeremy 
Taylor  to  try  whether  the  itinerant  magician  could 
not  recover  him  of  his  "distemper,"  but  we  know  not 
whether  Taylor  allowed  Greatrakes  to  rub  him,  nor 
what  his  distemper  was. 

His  only  surviving   son,  Charles,  was  now  about 


vi.]  DROMORE  207 

twenty-four  years  of  age.  He  was  consumptive,  and 
he  died  at  the  close  of  July  1667;  on  the  2nd  of 
August  he  was  buried  in  London,  in  the  church  of 
St.  Margaret's,  Westminster.  On  the  following  day 
Jeremy  Taylor,  who  had  visited  the  bedside  of  a  fever- 
patient  in  Lisburn  on  the  24th  of  July,  was  taken  ill, 
and  though  he  can  hardly  have  heard  of  Charles's  death, 
the  desperate  condition  of  his  only  son  must  have  been 
known  to  him,  and  doubtless  had  its  effect  in  depress- 
ing his  vital  force.  He  lay  sick  for  ten  days  in  his 
house  at  Lisburn,  the  disease  being  described  as  a 
fever,  and  on  the  13th  of  August  1667  he  died,  being 
in  all  probability  within  a  few  days  of  completing  his 
fifty-fourth  year.  It  is  probable  that  he  expected  to 
die,  and  perhaps  made  no  effort  to  recover ;  he  is  said 
to  have  wished  to  lie  in  his  new  church  at  Ballinderry, 
but  that  was  not  yet  consecrated.  He  added,  there- 
fore, and  these  are  recorded  as  being  his  last  words, 
"Bury  me  at  Dromore."  His  body,  accordingly,  was 
taken  on  the  21st  of  August  to  the  cathedral  which 
he  had  built  in  that  little  town.  It  was  deposited  in 
the  vault  beneath  the  chancel,  the  funeral  service  being 
performed  by  George  Rust. 

Such  was  the  death  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  an  event 
which  seems  to  have  attracted  no  notice  at  all  in 
England  and  to  have  created  little  sensation  even  in 
Ireland.  There  is  something  poignantly  sad,  and 
almost  ignominious,  in  this  close  to  the  life  of  a  sensitive 
man  of  genius.  After  a  long  experience  of  poverty  and 
glory,  he  had  become  wealthy  at  the  sacrifice  of  almost 
everything  else  which  makes  life  desirable.  We  mourn 
at  the  spectacle  of  the  passing  of  one  who  had  deserved 
to  be  happy,  and  who  had  escaped  happiness  by  so 


208  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

small  an  interval,  yet  had  escaped  it  wholly  at  the  end ; 
who  had  manifestly  striven  to  do  his  duty,  yet  with  so 
strange  a  want  of  tact  in  himself  and  of  appositeness 
in  his  surroundings,  that  the  result  in  the  eye  of 
history  bears  a  worse  air  even  than  dereliction  would. 
His  Irish  friends  in  the  non-clerical  world  of 
the  diocese  were  all  dead,  or,  like  Lord  Conway, 
settled  in  England.  No  one  seems  to  have  cared  to 
preserve  Jeremy  Taylor's  memory,  which  was  not 
recalled  until,  in  1827,  Richard  Mant,  who  was  then 
Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  was  roused  by  Heber's 
reproaches  to  set  up  in  the  cathedral  church  of  Lisburn 
a  tablet;  this  contained  a  lengthy  and  eulogistic 
epitaph,  claiming  for  Jeremy  Taylor  that  his  renown 
was  "second  to  that  of  none  of  the  illustrious  sons 
whom  the  Anglican  Church  hath  brought  forth."  Mean- 
while no  stone  was  erected  to  mark  the  place  of 
Taylor's  sepulture  in  Dromore  Cathedral,  and  in  1670 
the  same  fate  befell  the  remains  of  his  successor, 
George  Rust.  There  is  a  story  that  the  bones  of 
these  prelates  were  removed  and  scattered  to  make 
room  for  a  later  Bishop  of  Dromore,  and  that  when 
Percy  came  to  the  diocese  in  1782,  he  had  them 
collected  and  piously  reinterred.  This  tradition  has 
been  shown  to  rest  on  very  slender  evidence,  but  no 
doubt  the  remains  of  the  bishops  did  disappear.  When 
the  Cathedral  of  Dromore  was  rebuilt  in  1866,  certain 
bones  were  discovered  lying  in  confusion.  It  was 
taken  for  granted  that  these  were  the  remains  of  the 
bishops,  and  as  one  of  the  skulls  was  very  much  larger 
than  the  rest,  it  was  thought  that  it  must  belong  to 
the  most  intellectual  of  them.  On  this  slender  basis 
of  identification,  it  was  buried  in  the  choir,  and  a  brass 


vi.3  DROMORE  209 

proclaims  the  doubtful  fact  that  here  lie  the  bones  of 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Jeremy  Taylor.1 

A  better  authenticated  and  a  far  more  durable 
monument  to  him  was  raised  by  his  faithful  companion 
and  affectionate  admirer,  George  Kust,  Dean  of  Connor, 
the  last  and  warmest  of  his  friends.  This  took  the 
shape  of  a  funeral  sermon,  which  is  a  composition 
beautiful  in  itself,  and  as  a  contribution  to  Taylor's 
biography  simply  invaluable.  It  was  preached  at 
Dromore  on  the  21st  of  August,  and  repeated  in 
Dublin,  at  the  funeral  service,  on  the  3rd  of  September 
1667.  Kust,  who  is  not  known  to  have  been  personally 
acquainted  with  Taylor  until  the  latter  invited  him  over 
in  1661  to  aid  him  in  administering  the  diocese,  must 
have  obtained  his  information  regarding  earlier  years 
mainly  from  the  conversation  of  the  bishop  himself. 
Much  that  we  know  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  life  we  owe 
entirely  to  Rust,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  on  many 
points  where  Rust's  statements  have  been  distrusted  or 
even  rejected,  further  examination  has  proved  him  to 

1  It  is  impossible,  while  recording  the  obscurity  in  which  the 
bones  of  this  glorious  son  of  the  English  Church  were  permitted 
to  lie  in  his  Irish  exile,  not  to  recall  the  burning  epitaph  which 
Boileau  wrote  in  1694  for  the  unhonoured  grave  in  Brussels  of 
one  whom  Jeremy  Taylor  valued  above  all  the  other  conti- 
nental divines  of  his  time  : — 

Au  pied  de  cet  autel  de  structure  grossiere, 
Git  sans  pompe,  enferme  dans  une  vile  biere, 
Le  plus  savant  mortel  qui  jamais  ait  e"crit : 
ABNAULD,  qui  sur  la  grace,  instruit  par  Jesus-Christ, 
Combattant  pour  1'Eglise,  a,  dans  1'Eglise  meme, 
Souffert  plus  d'un  outrage  et  plus  d'un  anatheme. 

Not  a  word  in  this  but  is  directly  true  of  Taylor.  But  a 
reference  to  Pelagius  follows,  and  Boileau's  epitaph  ceases  to 
be  applicable. 

O 


210  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP.  vi. 

be  in  the  right.  No  life  of  Jeremy  Taylor  would  be 
complete  without  the  words  in  which,  closely  and 
successfully  imitating  the  style  of  his  subject,  George 
Rust  paints  him  as  he  knew  him : — 

"  This  great  prelate  had  the  good  humour  of  a  gentleman,  the 
eloquence  of  an  orator,  the  fancy  of  a  poet,  and  the  acuteness 
of  a  schoolman,  the  profoundness  of  a  philosopher,  the  -wisdom 
of  a  councillor,  the  sagacity  of  a  prophet,  the  reason  of  an 
angel,  and  the  piety  of  a  saint.  He  had  devotion  enough  for 
a  cloister,  learning  enough  for  a  university,  and  wit  enough 
for  a  college  of  virtuosi ;  and  had  his  parts  and  endowments 
been  parcelled  out  among  his  poor  clergymen  that  he  left 
behind  him,  it  would  perhaps  have  made  one  of  the  best 
dioceses  in  the  world.  .  .  .  He  is  fixed  in  an  orb  of  glory,  and 
shines  among  his  brethren-stars,  that  in  their  several  ages  gave 
light  to  the  world,  and  turned  many  souls  unto  righteousness ; 
and  we  that  are  left  behind,  though  we  can  never  reach  his 
perfections,  must  study  to  imitate  his  virtues,  that  we  may  at 
last  come  to  sit  at  his  feet  in  the  mansions  of  glory.' 


CHAPTER    VII 

TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY 

No  one  has  asserted  with  more  boldness  than  Coleridge 
the  pre-eminence  of  Jeremy  Taylor  as  a  man  of  letters. 
He  recognised  his  limitations  as  a  theologian,  as  a 
thinker,  but  he  insisted  on  his  art  as  a  writer,  on  the 
majesty  of  his  "great  arid  lovely  mind."  Coleridge 
placed  Jeremy  Taylor  among  the  four  principal  masters 
of  the  English  language  in  the  august  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century ;  he  "  used  to  reckon  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon,  Milton  and  Taylor,  four-square,  each 
against  each."  So  luminous  and  penetrating  are  the 
words  of  Coleridge  on  Jeremy  Taylor  that  we  can  but 
deeply  regret  the  fact  that  they  are  casual  and 
occasional,  and  are  scattered  here  and  there  over  the 
extent  of  his  writings.  "I  believe  such  a  complete 
man  hardly  shall  we  see  again  .  .  .  such  a  miraculous 
combination  of  erudition,  broad,  deep,  and  omnigeneous, 
of  logic  subtle  as  well  as  acute,  and  as  robust  as  agile 
.  .  .  and  of  genuine  imagination,  with  its  streaming 
force  unifying  all  at  one  moment  like  that  of  the  setting 
sun  when,  through  an  interspace  of  blue  sky  no  larger 
than  itself,  it  emerges  from  the  cloud  to  sink  behind 
the  mountain."  How  admirably  just  this  is,  with  a 
felicity  of  expression  worthy  of  the  subject  himself, 

211 


212  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

only  those  can  fully  realise  who  turn  to  it  from  immer- 
sion in  the  alternate  cloud  and  sunshine  of  Taylor's 
own  marvellous  writings. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  case  of  a  genius  com- 
parable only  with  those  of  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  and 
Milton,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  a  comparative 
neglect  which  requires  some  explanation.  By  the 
side  of  the  fulness  of  exposition  which  has  been  given 
to  the  lives  and  writings  of  the  three,  the  obscurity 
of  the  fourth  is  noticeable.  But,  in  the  first  place,  we 
must  observe  that  the  fame  of  Jeremy  Taylor  has  been 
injured  among  general  readers  by  the  fact  that  he  is 
a  divine,  and  among  divines  by  the  fact  that  he  is 
an  artist.  The  theologian  who  is  also  a  man  of  letters 
suffers  from  several  disadvantages  which  criticism  finds 
it  easier  to  state  than  to  remove.  In  the  first  place,  like 
other  professional  and  scientific  authors,  much  of  what 
he  says,  and  indeed  the  important  part  of  it,  is  definite 
statement  into  which  the  element  of  style  cannot  enter. 
The  theologian,  moreover,  is  obliged  to  use  a  great 
number  of  formulas  and  instances  which  are  not  his 
own,  and  with  the  form  of  which  he  dare  not  tamper. 
He  is  bound  to  have  those  words  of  Scripture,  which 
never  can  be  his  own  words,  for  ever  on  his  lips.  Be- 
fore, therefore,  we  can  reach  the  claim  of  the  theologian 
to  be  an  independent  man  of  letters,  we  have  to  clear 
away  a  great  deal  which  is  said  solely  for  purpose  of 
instruction,  and  a  great  deal,  too,  which  is  beautiful, 
but  which  is  not  the  substance  of  his  own  mind. 

The  theologian  who  devotes  much  attention  to 
literary  form  is  liable  to  suspicion  of  neglect  of  his 
primal  duty.  It  is  not  to  be  questioned  that  Jeremy 
Taylor's  astonishing  brilliancy  has  damaged  his  influ- 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     213 

ence  as  a  pure  divine.  From  the  very  first  he  was  not 
a  favourite  with  persons  of  a  strenuous  or  Puritanical 
bent  of  mind,  and  could  not  be ;  because  his  pre-occupa- 
tion  with  beauty  was  bound  to  be  viewed  with  disfavour 
amongst  those  who  felt  that  the  humblest  and  baldest 
types  of  speech  were  sufficient  to  express  exhortation, 
supplication,  and  contrition.  But  together  with  this 
too  copious  use  of  the  ornaments  of  speech,  there 
entered  a  certain  forbidding  sense  of  moral  ineffective- 
ness, which,  I  believe,  has  done  more  than  anything 
else  to  deprive  Jeremy  Taylor  of  the  predominant 
rank  which  his  art  and  his  intellect  demand  for  him. 
People  are  pleased  that  an  author  should  be  positive, 
definite,  almost  stubborn,  while  the  personal  attitude 
of  Taylor  to  the  faith  is  curiously  irresolute.  This 
strange  condition  is  illuminated  by  a  flash  of  intuition 
in  one  of  Coleridge's  letters  (Nov.  3,  1814),  where  he 
says  that  the  real  "opinion"  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  as 
contrasted  with  the  glorious  rush  of  his  eloquence, 
is  "all  weather-eaten,  dim,  useless,  a  ghost  in  marble." 
To  illustrate  this,  by  emphasising  the  contrast  be- 
tween Taylor's  rigidity  concerning  the  authority  of 
the  Church  and  his  latitude  in  interpreting  its  Articles, 
would  carry  us  into  a  field  which  must  be  carefully 
avoided  in  these  pages;  but  this  is  an  important 
element  of  what  we  may  call  discomfort  in  the  attitude 
of  the  reader  to  his  writings. 

It  is  possible  that  the  antagonisms  and  schisms 
within  the  English  Church  of  the  seventeenth  century 
tended  to  depreciate  the  directness  of  its  literary 
appeal.  The  result  of  always  having  to  remember  that 
offence  might  be  taken  by  a  large  proportion  of 
hearers  must  have  been  a  constant  disturbance  of  the 


214  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

reflecting  faculties  of  the  preacher.  It  was  only  a  very 
resolute  character  which  could  not  be  moved,  either  to 
timidity  or  else  to  acrimony,  by  this  sense  of  latent 
opposition.  The  great  English  theologians  of  the 
seventeenth  century — with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
among  whom  Barrow  is  prominent — strike  us  as  want- 
ing in  that  profound  physical  vitality,  of  which,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  Bossuet  and  F6nelon 
were  the  types.  But  the  absence  of  a  powerful 
Nonconformity  is  not  to  be  overlooked  as  an  immense 
aid  to  French  Catholic  oratory. 

We  must  now  rapidly  indicate  Jeremy  Taylor's 
position.  The  theological  literature  of  the  seventeenth 
century  possesses  a  certain  fixed  character  which  to 
the  casual  student  of  to-day  is  apt  to  seem  monotonous 
and  to  exclude  individuality.  But  when  we  begin  to 
examine  it,  the  different  tones  of  voice,  the  different  keys 
of  colour,  do  not  fail  to  assert  themselves.  When  once 
we  perceive  the  distinctions,  we  are  even  in  danger 
of  exaggerating  them.  We  find  ourselves  wondering 
that  any  one  can  ever  have  supposed  that  a  page  of 
Pearson  was  like  a  page  of  Tillotson.  We  close  our 
ears,  and  the  tones  of  the  voices  seem  entirely  various, 
although  in  some  cases  it  is  difficult  to  define  the 
difference.  More  than  all,  where  the  general  texture 
is  bare  and  rough,  the  presence  of  brilliant  ornament 
becomes  almost  painfully  insistent.  One  can  imagine 
a  reader,  long  steeped  in  Barrow,  turning  away, 
dazzled  and  embarrassed,  from  the  gorgeous  embroi- 
deries of  Jeremy  Taylor.  And,  indeed,  the  first  dis- 
tinction a  critic  has  to  make  in  defining  the  literary 
position  of  Taylor  is  founded  on  his  own  temperament. 
We  must  cut  him  off  at  once  from  pure  theologians 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     215 

like  Pearson  and  from  pure  grammarians  like  Wilkins. 
With  those  who  cared  for  nothing  but  the  pursuit  of 
naked  truth  and  with  those  whose  pleasure  lay  in  the 
logical  sequence  of  language,  he  had  no  vital  sympathy. 
He  cared  for  truth  mainly  as  a  pathway  to  emotion,  and 
for  words  only  in  the  effect  of  their  harmonious  and 
telling  arrangement. 

The  recognition  of  this  fact  greatly  simplifies  our 
task  in  seeking  to  define  Taylor's  position  in  English 
literature.  His  preoccupation  with  form,  his  magni- 
ficence in  ornament,  relegate  him  to  a  class  in  which 
but  few  of  the  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century 
make  so  much  as  an  effort  to  accompany  him.  In  the 
generation  which  preceded  his,  Donne  and  Joseph 
Hall  had  cultivated  prose  with  studied  care.  In  his 
own,  Chillingworth  possessed  grace  and  rapidity  of 
movement,  Fuller,  Henry  More,  and  Cudworth  were 
writers  of  great  excellence.  Without,  however,  in  the 
slightest  degree  depreciating  any  of  these  admirable 
men,  it  is  plain  that  in  a  serious  comparison  of  them, 
as  mere  wielders  of  English,  with  Jeremy  Taylor,  all 
but  Donne  and  Fuller  withdraw  into  the  second  place 
at  once.  With  the  sonorous  majesty  of  Donne's 
organ-sentences,  the  simpler  and  sweeter  phrases  of 
Taylor  have  some  relation.  Donne,  with  all  his 
differences,  is  the  one  English  preacher  who  seems  to 
have  left  a  mark  on  the  style  of  Taylor.  But  the 
younger  advanced  beyond  the  elder  in  suppleness  and 
variety,  and  even  in  splendour,  as  far  as  Pope  advanced 
beyond  Dryden  in  neatness  and  wit. 

The  only  rival  to  Taylor  is  Fuller,  who,  if  we 
examine  closely,  proves  to  be  not  so  much  a  rival  as  a 
happy  contrast.  The  present  generation  has  no  need 


216  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

to  be  reminded  of  the  familiar  genius  of  Fuller, 
garrulous  and  jocular,  that  "  most  appetising  bundle  of 
Contradictions,"  as  Professor  Saintsbury  has  defined  it. 
But  we  are  perhaps  in  danger  of  overvaluing  the 
prosaic  picturesqueness  of  Fullers  active  mind.  He 
has  been  one  of  the  most  fortunate  of  English  writers, 
indulged,  excused,  and  petted  by  criticism,  so  that  his 
very  faults  are  found  charming  in  the  eyes  of  his 
doting  admirers.  Wit,  as  we  know,  was  the  sum  and 
substance  of  his  intellect,  and  it  produced  delightful 
effects,  fresh  and  entertaining  and  boundlessly  quaint. 
But  to  turn  from  it  to  the  solemn  art  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  is  to  rise  into  a  higher,  if  a  rarer,  atmosphere, 
to  be  nearer  heaven,  to  come  within  earshot  of  a 
sublimer  music.  There  is  really  no  object  in  com- 
paring two  writers,  the  one  so  amiably  mundane,  the 
other  so  shining  and  seraphical. 

In  the  foregoing  chapters  the  writings  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  have  been  briefly  described  in  the  order  of 
their  composition,  as  portions  of  the  biographical 
narrative.  This  procedure  seemed  convenient  for  several 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  for  its  novelty,  since 
hitherto  the  various  critical  examinations  of  his  works, 
of  which  Heber's  is  the  most  elaborate,  have  invariably 
discussed  them  in  groups,  the  devotional  books  to- 
gether, the  casuistical  together.  In  the  second  place, 
to  give  each  publication  its  historical  position,  with  a 
brief  statement  of  its  character  and  contents,  was  to 
leave  us  free,  in  the  general  summing-up,  to  ignore 
altogether  what  is  not  essential.  By  resigning  the  bio- 
graphical order,  we  should  lose  most  important  evidence 
as  to  the  growth,  maturity,  and  decline  of  Taylor's 
genius.  By  retaining  it,  we  give  ourselves  an  oppor- 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     217 

tunity  of  examining  that  genius  only  when  it  reaches 
its  zenith  of  force  and  splendour.  No  writer  is  more 
cruelly  misjudged  if  we  throw  his  writings  into  a  sack, 
and  take  from  them  samples  at  random.  In  his  case 
it  is  imperative  that  criticism  should  select  before  it 
gives  its  final  judgment. 

The  importance  of  approaching  Jeremy  Taylor  when 
he  is  at  his  best  is  obvious  when  we  examine  the  habit 
of  his  mind.  No  great  author  displays  more  curiously 
the  phenomenon  of  growth.  The  style  of  Taylor,  in 
all  its  happiest  effects,  is  sensorial ;  he  did  not  begin 
to  write  well  until  he  saw  with  distinctness.  That  is 
the  keynote  of  the  genius  of  the  man,  it  was  one 
which  fed  on  pictures  and  impressions.  This  class  of 
intellect  is  always  slow  in  growth,  because  it  depends 
on  the  accumulation  of  rich  and  complex  reminiscences, 
which  have  to  be  stored  in  the  archives  of  the  brain 
before  they  can  be  brought  out  and  used.  A  French 
critic  has  noted  that  "  un  style  d'images  n'est  jamais 
precoce,"  and  it  is  not  until  Jeremy  Taylor  is  thirty 
years  of  age  that  he  begins  to  write  what  it  gives  a 
sympathetic  reader  pleasure  to  follow.  When  he 
arrived  at  Golden  Grove,  he  had  tasted  the  agitation 
of  life ;  he  had  acquired,  in  peril  and  unrest,  the  habit 
of  keen  sensation.  There  followed  complete  repose  of 
brain  and  nerves,  just  at  the  moment  when  the  precious 
gift  was  sufficiently  stored,  when  the  mechanism  was 
completed,  and  needed  but  the  touch  of  the  operator ; 
when,  in  fact,  Taylor  had  arrived  at  the  condition 
which  Fenelon  described  when  he  said,  "  Mon  cerveau 
est  comme  un  cabinet  de  peintures  dont  tous  les 
tableaux  remueraient  et  se  rangeraient  au  gre  du 
maitre  de  la  maison." 


218  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

But  if  a  style  so  concrete  as  Jeremy  Taylor's  does 
not  belong  to  early  life,  neither  is  it  characteristic  of 
old  age.  We  need  therefore  not  be  surprised  to  find 
the  pictures  fading  early  from  the  walls  of  Jeremy 
Taylor's  brain.  In  fact,  his  visual  faculty  slackened 
soon,  although  the  linguistic  faculty  survived  to  the 
end.  But  as  we  have  seen  that  his  genius  was  essen- 
tially sensorial,  we  can  feel  no  surprise  that  when  it 
ceased  to  be  stirred  by  images  and  sensations,  it  ceased 
to  be  attractive.  Our  biographical  method,  then,  has 
emphasised  the  rise  and  fall,  and  it  has  prepared  us  to 
make  here  the  somewhat  sweeping  statement  that  all  of 
Jeremy  Taylor's  work  which  is  first-rate  was  published 
between  1650  and  1655;  that  outside  this  absolutely 
consummate  group  of  his  writings  there  is  a  less  bril- 
liant but  still  admirable  group  extending  from  Liberty 
of  Prophesying  in  1647  to  The  Worthy  Communicant  in 
1660;  and  that  the  rest  of  his  works,  with  very  slight 
exceptions,  may  be  dismissed  from  literary  criticism 
altogether. 

In  examining  the  books  in  which  the  style  of 
Jeremy  Taylor  is  seen  at  his  best,  we  notice  first,  as 
their  prominently  distinguishing  feature,  their  beauty. 
Taylor  is  not  afraid  of  bold  and  brilliant  effects,  he  is 
even  ready  to  court  them.  His  preoccupation  with 
beauty,  not  in  any  secondary  or  suggested  form,  but  in 
the  most  gorgeous  scarlet  and  gold  of  fancy,  and  accom- 
panied by  flutes  and  hautboys  of  calculated  cadence, 
distinguishes  him  at  once  from  all  his  fellows.  There 
is  nobody,  except  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  in  the  hundred 
years  of  English  prose  between  the  Euphuists  and 
Shaftesbury,  who  can  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  Taylor  for  this  richness  of  imaginative  ornament. 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     219 

But  he  is  lifted  above  all  prose-writers  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  even  above  Browne,  by  his  simplicity, 
his  natural  air.  He  says  things  which  are  audacious 
enough  for  Shakespeare,  and  gorgeous  enough  for 
Ruskin,  but  he  says  them  in  perfect  naturalness.  It 
is  in  this  that  his  powerful  charm  resides,  and  it  is  to 
do  Jeremy  Taylor  the  cruelest  injury  to  confound  his 
manner  with  that  of  Lyly  or  the  later  disciples  of 
Marini.  When  the  author  of  Euplmes  tells  us  that 
"  the  precious  stone  autharsitis,  being  thrown  into  the 
fire,  looketh  black  and  half  dead,  but  being  cast  into 
the  water,  glisteneth  like  the  sunbeams,"  he  is  intro- 
ducing into  his  narrative  a  piece  of  dead  ornament  to 
dazzle  us.  He  knows  absolutely  nothing  about  "the 
precious  stone  autharsitis,"  but  he  thinks  that  it  will 
impress  the  reader.  But  when  Taylor  says,  "  A  brother 
if  he  be  worthy  is  the  readiest  and  nearest  to  be  a 
friend,  but  till  he  be  so,  he  is  but  the  twilight  of  the 
day,  and  but  the  blossom  to  the  fairest  fruit  of 
paradise,"  the  illustration  is  apt  and  just,  and,  as  it 
were,  an  inevitable  aid  in  the  expansion  of  the  thought. 
It  is  in  this  extraordinary  vitality  and  organic 
growth  of  his  metaphors  that  Taylor  is  really,  what  he 
is  so  often  called,  "the  Shakespeare  of  English  prose."1 
His  visual  memory  was  a  well  of  images  into  which  his 
fancy  was  incessantly  descending,  to  return  brimful 
of  new  combinations  and  illustrations.  His  taste  was 
very  pure,  and  for  all  his  florid  ornament,  there  is 
perhaps  no  writer  of  the  time  whose  metaphors  seem 

1  This  epithet  was  first  applied  to  Jeremy  Taylor  not,  as  is 
commonly  supposed,  by  Gray,  but  by  William  Mason,  the 
biographer  of  Gray.  Mason  is  not  rich  enough  to  bear  being 
robbed  of  the  happiest  of  all  his  phrases. 


220  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [OHAF. 

to  us  less  forced,  or  less  incongruous.  Certain  primal 
elements  are  extremely  fascinating  to  him;  of  the 
attraction  to  him  of  effects  of  light  and  of  water  we 
shall  presently  speak.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  all 
his  inductions  from  natural  phenomena  have  that 
fervour  which  is  needful  to  give  this  species  of  orna- 
ment real  value.  When  his  prose  is  richest,  when  it 
leaps  with  greatest  daring  from  image  to  image,  it 
always  preserves  "  that  entire,  unsuspecting,  unf earing, 
childlike  profusion  of  feeling"  which  Coleridge  so 
accurately  noted  as  its  leading  characteristic.  Whether 
Taylor  illustrates  his  meaning  by  the  roughness  of  a 
sour  grape  upon  the  palate  or  by  the  penetration  of  a 
bee's  sting  in  the  finger,  whether  it  is  the  unskilful 
navigation  of  lads  in  a  boat  rocked  upon  the  tide 
which  inflames  his  reflection,  or  the  flutter  of  leaf-gold 
under  the  breath  of  an  artisan,  it  is  always  his  sincere 
and  vivid  emotion  which  shines  forth  below  the  image. 
He  writes  with  extraordinary  happiness  about  light 
and  water.  Nothing  would  be  easier,  if  we  had  the 
space,  than  to  produce  an  anthology  from  his  works, 
and  confine  it  scrupulously  to  those  two  themes.  He 
is  quick,  beyond  any  other  man  then  living,  in  observ- 
ing the  effects  of  flashes  of  lightning  in  a  dark  room, 
of  beams  of  the  sun  breaking  through  the  vapour  of 
rain,  and  divided  by  it  into  sheaves  of  rays,  of  wax 
candles  burning  in  the  sunshine,  of  different  qualities 
of  beautiful  radiance  in  the  eyes  of  a  woman,  of  a 
child,  of  a  hawk.  Light  escaping  from,  or  dispersed 
by,  or  streaming  through  cloud,  is  incessantly  in- 
teresting to  him.  But  perhaps  it  is  in  all  the  forms 
of  water  that  he  most  delights,  water  bubbling  up 
through  turf,  or  standing  in  drops  on  stone,  or  racing 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     221 

down  a  country  lane ;  the  motion  and  whisper  of  little 
wandering  rivulets ;  the  "  purls  of  a  spring  that  sweats 
through  the  bottom  of  a  bank,  and  intenerates  the 
stubborn  pavement  till  it  hath  made  it  fit  for  the  im- 
pression of  a  child's  foot."  He  seems  to  have  been 
for  ever  watching  the  eddies  of  the  Towey  and  the 
windings  and  bubblings  of  its  tributaries,  and  the 
music  of  those  erratic  waters  passed  into  his  speech. 

Like  all  his  contemporaries,  he  examines  nature  with 
near-sighted  eyes.  The  mountains  of  Wales,  even  that 
panorama  which  was  seventy  years  later  to  fill  the 
first  landscape-painters  and  descriptive  poets  with 
rapture,  are  as  unseen  by  Jeremy  Taylor  as  the  tors 
of  Dartmoor  are  by  Herrick.  The  author  of  the 
Eniautos  has  no  word  about  the  great  outlines  of  the 
country-side,  but  in  the  articulations  of  an  insect  or 
the  softness  of  the  stalk  of  a  violet  nothing  escapes 
him.  He  notes  the  darting  movement  of  a  mouse 
over  his  shoe  j  the  elasticity  and  the  tenderness  of  the 
young  ringed  tendrils  of  a  vine ;  the  metamorphosis  of 
the  silkworm-moth,  that  "  casting  its  pearly  seeds  for 
the  young  to  breed,  leaveth  its  silk  for  man,  and  dieth 
all  white  and  winged  in  the  shape  of  a  flying  creature, 
— so  is  the  progress  of  souls."  For  glow-worms,  grass- 
hoppers, butterflies,  and  the  little  dark  ephemera  that 
cling  to  walls,  he  has  a  searching  eye,  and  fixes  on 
their  characteristic  phenomena.  He  notes  all  the 
vicissitudes  in  the  life  of  an  apple-tree,  its  gum,  its 
sterile  branches,  the  fragility  of  its  blossoms.  He  is 
acutely  sensitive  to  odours,  and  finds  metaphors  for 
his  use  in  the  volatility  of  balsam  and  nard  and 
camphor,  in  the  keenness  of  their  attack  upon  the 
brain,  in  the  curious  association  of  perfumes  with 


222  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

events  and  places.  Ugly  things  take  their  rank,  too, 
in  the  records  of  his  memory ;  he  stores  up  for  illus- 
tration the  icy  stiffness  of  a  dead  man's  fingers,  the 
intolerable  beating  of  a  watch  in  the  darkness,  the 
disagreeable  sound  of  gravel  on  a  wheel.  These 
instances  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  sensorial  style  might  be 
prolonged  almost  indefinitely.  With  the  solitary 
exception  of  Shakespeare,  there  is  no  writer  in  all 
our  early  literature  who  has  made  so  fresh  and  copious 
and  effective  a  use  of  metaphor  taken  directly  from  the 
observation  of  natural  objects. 

With  this  pre-occupation  with  phenomena,  Jeremy 
Taylor  combines  a  habit  which  we  may  hastily  fancy  to 
be  antagonistic  to  it.  There  is  no  great  writer,  except 
Burton,  who  introduces  into  his  English  prose  such 
incessant  citation  of  or  reference  to  the  classics  as 
Taylor  does.  But  this  custom  does  not  often  impair 
the  freshness  of  his  outlook  upon  life.  It  has  always 
to  be  remembered  that  the  imitation  of  the  ancients 
was  a  form  of  originality  in  the  seventeenth  century ; 
it  enabled  writers  to  be  daring  and  yet  safe.  The 
method  of  use  of  the  classical  poets  by  a  master  of 
such  genius  as  Jeremy  Taylor  was  either  that  he  said, 
with  their  help,  but  by  no  means  in  literal  translation, 
what  had  not  been  said  in  English  before ;  or  else  that 
he  transposed  the  style  of  the  ancients  into  another 
style,  entirely  distinct  from  theirs  and  personal  to 
himself.  Even  Democritus  Junior  had  taken  that 
view  of  the  independence  of  his  industry — "  as  a  good 
housewife  out  of  divers  fleeces  weaves  one  piece  of 
cloth,  a  bee  gathers  wax  and  honey  out  of  many 
flowers,  and  makes  a  new  bundle  of  all,  I  have  labori- 
ously collected  this  cento  out  of  divers  writers." 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     223 

Taylor,  however,  does  not  dream  of  collecting  such 
a  cento,  or  of  illustrating  the  ancient  authors  in  any 
way ;  he  forces  them  to  illustrate  him,  generally  very 
much  indeed  against  their  will,  with  haughty  dis- 
regard of  their  intention.  He  is  impregnated  with 
the  odour  of  some  of  the  ancients,  and  he  uses  them, 
as  we  saw  that  he  used  the  natural  phenomena  around 
him,  as  a  well  of  images  into  which  he  dips  his 
imagination. 

Sometimes  he  fuses  the  fragment  of  Latin  poetry  into 
his  prose  without  much  alteration,  as  when,  in  The 
Worthy  Communicant,  we  find,  "What  if  you  empty  all 
the  Msevanian  valleys,  and  drive  the  fat  lambs  in 
flocks  unto  the  altars  1  What  if  you  sacrifice  a  herd 
of  white  bulls  from  Clitumnus  ? "  because  Statius  had 
said : — 

"  Nee  si  vacuet  Maevania  valles, 

Ant  prsestent  niveos  Clitumna  novalia  tauros, 

Sufficiam." 

But  he  does  not  prefer  this  metallic  method,  and 
much  more  often  he  uses  the  classical  quotation  or 
reference  merely  as  an  ingredient,  sometimes  faintly 
suggested,  sometimes  left  so  obvious  as  to  give  its 
unction  to  the  passage  while  yet  defying  definite 
paraphrase,  as  in  A  Discourse  of  Friendship,  where  an 
exquisitely  graceful  chain  of  reflections  is  based  upon 
the 

"  Ut  prsestem  Pyladen,  aliquis  mihi  prsestet  Oresten  " 

of  Martial  without  a  single  word  being  borrowed  from 
the  epigrammatist,  although  the  sense  of  the  Latin 
is  unmistakably  dissolved  into  the  English.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  the  latter  method,  employing  the 


224  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

ancients  as  a  gradus  of  experiences,  is  by  far  the 
more  fortunate,  and  that  the  English  style  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  is  usually  spoiled  when  he  attempts  the  crude 
transference  of  classic  poetry  into  his  own  prose. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  wonder  whether  the  profusion 
of  Latin  and  Greek  quotation  in  Jeremy  Taylor's 
sermons  was  appreciated  by  his  auditors.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  was  admired ;  yet  even  in  that  learned 
age  Burton  had  refrained  from  Greek,  because  this 
language  was  unfamiliar  to  the  public.  Taylor  almost 
invariably  translates,  at  once,  any  passage  which  he 
has  quoted  in  the  original,  and  it  is  not  impossible 
that  the  translation  only  was  spoken,  and  the  Greek 
added  when  the  sermon  was  published.  We  know, 
indeed,  that  pulpit-learning  was  in  fashion,  and  that 
there  were  people  who,  as  Earle  tells  us  in  his  Micro- 
cosmographic',  came  to  sermons  only  that  they  might 
approve  of  the  references  to  Tacitus  and  Seneca.  But 
Taylor  would  not  have  encouraged  mere  pretentious 
pedantry.  He  doubtless  considered,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  then  dying  Renaissance,  that  there  was  no  safety 
for  literature,  no  solid  basis  for  taste,  but  in  depend- 
ence on  the  classics.  There  is  scarcely  a  single  passage 
in  his  variegated  writings  in  which  he  admits  con- 
sciousness of  the  existence  of  a  modern  author  who 
does  not  write  in  Latin.  This  scorn  of  vernacular 
literature  is  very  paradoxical  in  a  man  who  laboured 
to  write  English  with  the  most  exquisite  art  and 
delicacy.  It  has  already  been  observed  that  Taylor 
had  a  peculiar  cult  for  Prudentius,  whom  he  is  never 
tired  of  quoting.  The  Spanish  poet  would  have  for 
him  the  double  charm  of  belonging  to  the  classical  tradi- 
tion, and  yet  of  being  Christian.  Perhaps  something 


vii.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     225 

in  the  career  of  Prudentius,  a  courtier  and  soldier, 
who  withdrew  from  the  world  into  a  literary  seclusion, 
may  have  reminded  him  of  his  own  adventures.  But 
an  indifference  to  critical  distinctions  seems  involved 
in  the  habitual  reference  to  Cicero  and  to  Lactantius, 
to  Virgil  and  to  Prudentius,  as  if  these  were  names 
of  precisely  the  same  intrinsic  value.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed, too,  that  it  is  annoying  to  feel  that  an  orator 
who  found  such  acute  enjoyment  in  the  verse  of 
^Eschylus  was  prevented  by  a  prejudice  from  finding 
it  also  in  that  of  Shakespeare. 

It  is  perhaps  connected  with  his  critical  insensibility, 
if  it  may  so  be  called,  that  Jeremy  Taylor,  although 
he  devotes  so  much  attention  to  the  classics,  is  singu- 
larly little  affected  by  their  principles  in  his  grammar. 
His  syntax  is  not  founded,  as  is  that  of  Sir  Thomas  ./_ 
Browne,  on  an  obstinate  preference  for  the  Latin  x 
system.  Taylor's  ideas  of  grammatical  composition 
were  whimsical  in  the  highest  degree,  and  in  the  course 
of  one  of  his  long  breathless  sentences  he  will  shift 
his  tenses  and  link  his  noun  to  some  neighbouring 
verb  that  shrinks,  intimidated,  from  the  unwelcome 
conjunction.  The  laxity  of  Taylor's  grammar,  so 
widely  opposed  to  the  elegant  correctness  of  Dryden 
and  Cowley,  his  younger  contemporaries,  has,  however, 
not  scandalised  all  his  critics.  Coleridge  boldly  defends 
it,  and  declares  that  if  the  syntax  of  Taylor  is  occasion- 
ally eccentric,  it  involves  no  difficulties  of  compre- 
hension. But  even  if  we  admit  that  "a  man  long 
accustomed  to  silent  and  solitary  meditation  is  apt 
to  lose  or  lessen  the  talent  of  communicating  his 
thoughts  with  grace  and  perspicuity,"  the  excuse 
hardly  touches  the  question  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  gram- 

P 


226  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP. 

mar ;  since  he  is  not  accused  of  lack  of  grace,  nor  of 
any  want  of  perspicuity  save  what  directly  arises  from 
the  fault  which  Mr.  Saintsbury  notes,  that  "he  breaks 
Priscian's  head  with  the  calmest  unconcern." 

The  long  sentences  of  Jeremy  Taylor  have,  on  the 
other  hand,  been  unjustly  blamed.  In  his  finest 
writings  the  volume  of  the  "  stately  march  and  diffi- 
cult evolutions"  is  mainly  a  matter  of  punctuation. 
Taylor's  printers  had  an  objection  to  the  full  stop,  and 
they  covered  the  page  with  commas  and  semicolons 
when  a  point  was  what  they  should  have  used.  To 
repunctuate  Taylor  would  be  an  act  of  real  editorial 
kindness,  and  no  author  suffers  more  than  he  from  that 
affectation  which  loves  to  reproduce  in  a  modern  book 
the  irrational  errors  of  an  old  printer.  Another  cause 
of  the  apparent  length  of  Taylor's  sentences  is  the 
rhetorical  "and"  with  which  he  loves  to  link  the 
independent  sequents  of  them.  It  is  a  trick  of  oratory ; 
by  his  conjunctions  he  thinks  to  hold  the  attention  of 
the  listener.  If  we  leave  out  the  needless  "ands," 
mere  inspirations  of  the  breath,  in  reading,  we  find 
some  of  his  longest  sentences  broken  up  into  intelli- 
gible and  completely  effective  modern  prose.  He  was 
a  conscious  rhetorician,  and  in  his  most  studied  passages 
it  is  rather  to  the  ear  than  to  the  eye  that  he  appeals. 
His  use  of  "Stay!"  and  "What?"  and  "Well!"  as 
modes  of  opening  a  sentence,  or  cluster  of  sentences, 
is  notable  in  this  connection. 

The  main  quality  of  Taylor's  style  is  its  splendour, 
and  the  fact  that  he  is  extraordinarily  florid  and  ornate 
has  led  to  his  being  charged  with  artificiality.  But 
although,  as  Coleridge  has  noted,  Taylor's  discursive 
intellect  sometimes  "dazzle-darkened  his  intuition," 


vn.]    TAYLOR'S  PLACE  IN  LITERARY  HISTORY     227 

making  him  desire  to  say,  at  the  same  moment,  and 
in  prodigious  language,  more  things  than  a  human 
brain  can  endure  in  concert,  his  actual  writing  was 
rarely  turgid  or  difficult.  In  that  age  great  magni- 
ficence of  imagery  was  easily  excused  for  robing  itself 
in  pomposity  of  language.  The  Gyp-ess  Grove  of  Wil- 
liam Drummond  had  introduced  a  habit  of  excessively 
rich  and  sonorous  prose,  which  developed,  when  it  was 
abused,  into  mere  tumidity.  Taylor's  meditations  upon 
death  are  related,  like  those  of  Burnet,  Browne,  and 
Leighton,  to  this  habit  of  superlative  grandiloquence. 
But  he  never  allows  himself  to  lose  his  balance.  He  re- 
deems his  emotion,  at  the  most  critical  moment,  by  some 
phrase  of  extreme  simplicity.  In  this  tact  of  his,  and 
in  the  command  he  never  loses  over  his  wealth  of  meta- 
phors and  chains  of  sonorous  polysyllables,  he  again 
constantly  reminds  the  reader  of  Shakespeare.  At  the 
close  of  one  of  his  most  perilous  outbursts  of  mortuary 
splendour,  his  voice  drops  into  a  whisper :  "  She  lived 
as  we  all  should  live,  and  she  died — as  I  fain  would 
die."  These  sudden,  pathetic  felicities  are  always  at 
his  command.  They  greatly  add  to  the  charm  of  one 
of  the  most  elaborate  of  the  sections  of  his  work,  his 
beautifully  constructed  biographical  funeral  sermons. 

As  a  rule  the  vocabulary  of  Taylor  is  easy  and 
modern.  He  clung  less  than  most  of  his  contem- 
poraries to  obsolete  forms  of  speech,  and  his  genius 
naturally  predisposed  him  to  an  easy  elegance  in  the 
choice  of  words.  By  the  side  of  Milton,  for  instance, 
whose  curious  vocabulary  in  prose  seems  sometimes 
almost  affected  in  its  oddity,  Taylor  appears  of  a  newer 
fashion,  less  eccentric,  anxious  to  avoid  what  is 
grotesque.  Taylor  would  not  have  been  a  child  of 


228  JEREMY  TAYLOR  [CHAP.  vn. 

the  late  Renaissance,  if  he  had  not  justified  his  right 
to  impose  certain  words  on  the  vernacular.  He  has 
a  few  favourite  locutions  of  his  own,  and  the  close 
reader  of  his  books  soon  comes  to  recognise  lipothymy, 
eutaxy,  dyscrasy,  coloquintida,  and  discalceate  as  old  friends. 
All  these  have  preserved  their  place  in  our  dictionaries, 
and  although  none  of  them  is  in  common  use  to-day, 
they  must  pass  as  English  words.  We  do  not  find 
in  the  pages  of  Jeremy  Taylor  those  newfangled 
terms  of  pedantry  which,  all  unacceptable  and  un- 
accepted, were  urged  in  vain  by  his  contemporaries 
on  the  unwilling  English  grammarians,  and  dropped 
immediately  into  oblivion. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Adair,  Patrick,  155,  159,  161,  180. 

^Eschylus,  74,  225. 

Airs  and  Dialogues  (Lawes),  127. 

Anacreon,  86. 

Anthology,  The  Greek,  103. 

Apology  for  Liturgy,  An,  1,  21,  38. 

"Apples  of  Sodom  "  (sermon),  103. 

Arcades  ( Milton),  127. 

Areopagitica  (Milton),  45. 

Arnauld  of  Port-Royal,  111,  209. 

Auxiliary  Beauty,  129-33. 

B 

Bacon,  211,  212. 

Barlow,  Bishop,  124. 

Barrow,  214. 

Batchcroft,  Thomas,  6. 

Bayly,  Dr.  Thomas,  53. 

Bellay,  Joachim  du,  93. 

Blood,  Colonel  Thomas,  196. 

Bloody  Tenet  of  Persecution,   The 

(Williams),  44. 
Boileau,  209. 
Bossuet,  81,  84,  104,  214. 
Boyle,  Robert.  ]  29. 
Bramhall,    Archbishop,    160,    167, 

175,  198,  199. 
Bramhall,     Archbishop,     Funeral 

Sermon  on,  198,  199. 
Bridges,  Joanna,  see  Taylor,  Joanna. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  92, 164,  198, 

218,  225,  227. 


Burnet,  Bishop,  227. 
Burton,  222,  224. 

C 

Caius  College,  Cambridge,  5. 
Carbery,  Richard,  Earl  of,  32,  33, 

34,  35,  51,  72,  95,  98,  117,  118, 

127. 

Frances,  Countess  of,  75-78. 

Carte,  Thomas,  168. 

Casimir's  Odes,  93. 

Catullus,  86. 

Charles  I.,  24,  25,  48,  50,  51,  63, 64, 

109,  126,  145. 

ii.,  145,  161,  203. 

Chillingworth,  William,  14,  15,  16, 

30,  40,  57,  111,  215. 
Choice  Forms  of  Prayer,  97. 
"  Christian  Simplicity  "  (sermon), 

103. 
Christian's  Obligation  to  Peace  and 

Charity,  The  (Hammond),  49. 
Cicero,  225. 

Cicero's  De  Officiis,  103. 
Civil  War,  The,  24  seq. 
Clara,  Franciscus  a  Sancta,  13,  14, 

18,  19. 

Clcrus  Domini,  95-97. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  49,  50,  201,  211, 

213,  220,  225,  226. 
Compton,  Spencer,  second  Earl  of 

Northampton,  27,  28,  54,  55,  56, 

60. 

Comus  (Milton),  45,  127. 
229 


230 


JEREMY  TAYLOR 


Conway,  Edward,  third  Viscount, 
148,  149,  150,  153,  157,  206,  208. 

Lady,  192,  194. 

Cornwallis,  Sir  William's,  .Essays,  74. 

Cowley,  114,  225. 

Crashaw,  7. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  51,  52,  108,  112, 
128,  150,  151,  156. 

Cromwell,  Henry,  151,  156. 

Cudworth,  215. 

Cypress  Grove,  The  (William 
Drummond),  227. 

D 

"  Danses  Macabres,"  90. 
Dalstone,  Sir  George,  146. 
Davenport,  Christopher,  see  Clara. 
Death,  Conception  of,  in  Jeremy 

Taylor's  time,  90. 
Defoe,  193. 

Deus  Justificatus,  125, 134,  136. 
Devonshire,  Christiana,  Countess  of, 

125,  132,  133. 
Discourse  of  Friendship,  The,  130, 

138,  139,  140-44. 
Dissuasion  from  Popery,  193,  200, 

201. 

Donne,  John,  8,  91,  125,  163,  215. 
"Doomsday -Book"  (sermons),  101. 
Dromore,  184-210. 
Dryden,  225. 
Ductor  Dubitantium,  16,  119,  120, 

121,  123,  145,  157,  161-67. 
Dugdale,  Sir  William,  2,  87. 
Duppa,  Bishop  Brian,  98,  117,  119, 

120,  121,  122,  123. 

E 

Earle's  Microcosmographie,  224. 
Egerton,  Lady  Alice,  127. 
Eikon  Basilike,  65. 
Eniautos,  79-86,  95,  99,  102. 
Episcopacy  A  sserted,  26,  27. 
Euphues  (Lily),  219. 
Euripides,  103. 


Evelyn,  John,  107-109,  112,  114, 
117,  119,  127,  128,  133,  137,  138, 
145, 187,  188. 

F 
"  Faith  and  Patience  of  the  Saints, 

The  "  (sermon),  83. 
Fe"nelon,  214,  217. 
Festival  Hymns,  113-16. 
Flatman,  115. 
Free  Disputation  against  pretended 

Liberty    of  Conscience  (Ruther- 
ford), 49. 

Friendship,  140-44. 
Fuller,  7,  30,  44,  109,  215,  216. 
Funeral        Monuments         (John 

Weever),  93. 
Funeral  Sermons,  Taylor's,  77,  146, 

227. 
Funerals,  Taylor's  attitude  to,  91, 

92. 

G 

Gardiner,  Samuel  R.,  40,  44. 
Gerard,  Colonel,  31,  32,  35. 
Ghosts,  Belief  in,  190-94. 
Golden  Grove,  66-105. 
Golden  Grove,  The,  111,  112,  113, 

118. 

Gordon,  Mr.  Alexander,  201. 
Gray,  219. 

Greatrakes,  Valentine,  206. 
Great  Exemplar,  TJie,  53-65,  127. 
Gunpowder  Plot,  Sermon  on,   18, 

19,  59. 

H 

Hall,  Joseph,  3,  215. 
Hammond,  Bishop,  48,  49,  124, 137. 
Harrison,  Dr.  Thomas,  151. 
Hatton,  Christopher,  Lord,  25,  26, 

29,  63,  95,  187. 
Hausted,  Peter,  16,  17. 
Heber,  Bishop,  1,  27,  62,  85,  184. 
Hecuba  (Euripides),  103. 
Henson,  Canon  Hensley,  41. 


INDEX 


231 


Herbert,  George,  7,  64,  114. 

Hill,  Colonel  Arthur,  157,  176, 177, 

204,  206. 
Hill,  Moses,  206. 
Hillsborough  176,  177,  178,  206. 
Hippolytus  (pseudo-Seneca),  93. 
Holy  Dying,  87,  88  seq.,  95. 
Holy  Living,  69-75,  95. 
Homra  House,  177. 
Hooker,  163. 
Horace,  93. 

I 

Ichabod  (Ken),  197. 
Imitation  of  Christ,  The,  113. 

J 

Jeanes,  Henry,  136,  137. 

Jones,  Inigo,  148,  153. 

Juxon,  Bishop,  10,  17,  22,  64,  65. 

K 

Ken,  Bishop,  197. 
Kennedy,  Sir  Kichard,  201,  202. 
Kennett,  Bishop,  130. 

L 

Lactantius,  225. 

Langsdale,  Edward,  134. 

Mrs.  (Taylor's  mother-in-la\v), 

134. 
Laud,  Archbishop,  9,  10, 11, 12,  13, 

14,  16,  17,  21,  22,  31. 
Laugharne,  Colonel,  31,  32,  33,  34, 

51. 

Lawes,  Henry,  127. 
Leighton,  Robert,  227. 
Leslie,  Henry,  Bishop,  160, 175, 182. 

Robert,  Bishop,  175,  185. 

Lett,  Canon,  177. 

Letter  of  Resolution  (Hammond),  49. 

Liberty  of  Prophesying,  The,  7,  33, 

40-50,  203,  218. 

Liberty  of  Conscience  (Anon.),  44. 
Lisburn,  148, 149, 151,  177,  178. 
Llanfihangel-Aberbythych,  36,  67, 

68,  86,  118. 


Lombard,  Peter,  88. 

Londonderry,  Marquis  of,  178. 

Lort,  Michael,  203. 

Louis  xiv.,  104. 

Lucan,  93. 

Lucretius,  93. 

Lyly,  219. 

M 

Margetson,  Archbishop,  168,  198. 
"Marriage  Ring,   The"  (sermon), 

102,  103. 

Martial,  74,  86,  223. 
Mason,  William,  219. 
Massereene,  John,   first  Viscount, 

155,  173,  202. 
Massillon,  80. 

Microcosmographie  (Earle),  224. 
Milton,  3,  7,  45,  49,  50,  127,  211, 

212,  227. 

Monk,  General,  160. 
More,  Henry,  7,  215. 
Musophilus  (Samuel  Daniel),  22. 

N 

Nicholson,  Dr.  Richard,  35. 
Northampton,  Earl  of,  see  Compton. 
Novels,  French  heroic,  61,  142. 

0 

Orange,  Princess  Mary  of,  170,  171. 
Original     Righteousness     (Henry 

Jeanes),  137. 

Original  Sin,  120,  123,  124. 
"  Orinda,"  see  Philips,  Mrs. 
Ormonde,  James,  first  Duke  of, 

167,  173,  174,  196,  197,  201. 
Osborne,  Dorothy,  61. 
Ovid,  93. 
Oxford,  11-15,  18,  25-28. 

P 

Panzani,  19. 

Pearson,  214. 

Perse,  Dr.  Stephen,  4,  5. 

School,  4,  5. 

Persius,  93. 


232 


JEREMY  TAYLOR 


Petty,  Sir  William,  152,  204. 

Petronius,  86,  93. 

Philips,     Mrs.     ("The     Matchless 

Orinda"),  115,137,  138,  139,  140, 

142,  143,  144,  145. 
Pindarique  Odes  (Cowley),  114. 
Pococke,  85. 
Portmore,  148-83,  194. 
Presbyterianism  in  Ireland,  156-61, 

173-75,  178-81. 
Prudentius,  224,  225. 
Psalter  of  David,  The,  Hatton's,  29. 
Pseudodoxia£pidemica(Sir  Thomas 

Browne),  164. 
Puritanism,  22. 

R 

Raleigh,  91. 

Real   Presence   of   Christ   in    the 

Blessed  Sacrament,  The,  98,  109, 

110,  111. 

Religion  of  a  Protestant  (Chilling- 
worth),  40. 
Repentance,  Deathbed,  75,  82,  120, 

123,  124. 
Resolutions  and  Decisions  (Joseph 

Hall),  163. 

Reverence  due  to  the  Altar,  38. 
Restoration,  The,  160,  161,  187. 
Risden,  Thomas,  8. 
Rome,   Church  of,   110,  146,   170, 

200,  201. 
Royston,   Richard  (publisher),   37, 

38,  107,  120,  122,  125,  129,  131, 

145,  161,  162,  169. 
Ruskin,  219. 
Rust,  Bishop  George,  5,  9,  12,  35, 

97,  160,  182,  183,  185,  193,  196, 

207,  209,  210. 
Rutland,  Countess  of,  147. 

S 

Saintsbury,  Professor,  216,  226. 
Samwayes,  Dr.  Peter,  124. 
Sancroft,  Bishop,  124. 
Sanderson,  Bishop,  124,  163. 


Sarjeaunt,  John,  110. 

Secrets  of  the  Invisible  World  (Defoe), 

193. 

Sermon  on  Gunpowder  Treason,  19. 
Sermons  preached  at  Golden  Grove, 

79  seq. 
Shakespeare,    211,    212,   219,   222, 

225,  227. 
Sheldon,  Gilbert,  12,  98,  110,  125, 

126,  128,  202. 
Silex  ScintUlans  (Henry  Vaughan), 

114,  115. 

Sin,  Original,  120,  123,  124. 
Sonnets  (Shakespeare),  55. 
"Spirit  of  Grace,  The"  (sermon), 

86. 

Statius,  223. 
Sterne,  Dr.  John,  152. 

T 

Taylor,  Jeremy : — 
Family  history,  1-3. 
Birth,  3. 

Enters  the  Perse  School,  4. 
Goes  to  Gonvilleand  Cains  College, 

4-6. 
Contemporaries  at  the  University, 

7. 

Takes  Holy  Orders,  8. 
Preaches  at  St.  Paul's,  8. 
Patronised  by  Laud,  9. 
Goes  to  All  Souls,  Oxford,  12. 
Chaplain  to  Laud,  13. 
Acquaintances  at  Oxford,  13-16. 
Rector  of  Uppingham,  17. 
Supposed  Roman  tendencies,  18 

seq. 
Sermon  on  Gunpowder  Treason, 

18,  19. 

Marries  Phrebe  Langsdale,  20. 
His  children,  21, 86, 186, 206, 207. 
Fall  of  his  patron  Laud,  21,  22. 
His  part  in  the  Civil  War,  23  seq. 
Friendship  with  Sir  Christopher 

Hatton,  25. 


INDEX 


233 


Taylor,  Jeremy : — 
Episcopacy  Asserted,  26,  27. 
Rector  of  Overstone,  27-29. 
Captured    by    the     Parliamen- 
tarians, 31. 

Chaplain  to  Lord  Carbery,  36. 
Literary  work  at  Golden  Grove, 


An  Apology  for  Liturgy,  38. 
The  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  40. 
The  Great  Exemplar,  53. 
Life  at  Golden  Grove,  66. 
Ride   and    Exercises    of    Holy 

Living,  69-75. 

Twenty- flight  Sermons,  79-86. 
Death  of  Lady  Carbery,  76. 
His  orthodoxy  suspected,  82, 120, 

123,  124,  125,  136. 
Death  of  his  wife,  87. 
The  Rides  and  Exercises  of  Holy 

Dying,  88-95. 
Clerus  Domini,  95. 
Twenty-Five  Sermons,  98-103. 
Years  of  affliction,  106-47. 
Friendship  with  John  Evelyn,  107. 
The  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  the 

Blessed  Sacrament,  109. 
The  Golden  Grove,  112, 113. 
Suifers  imprisonment,  112. 
Festival  Hymns,  113-16. 
Unum  Necessarium,  116-25. 
Again  imprisoned,  116. 
Poverty,  117,  159. 
Second  marriage,  117-18,  126-7. 
Deus  Justificatus,  125. 
Retires  to  Man-dinam,  126. 
Repiited    author   of    Auxiliary 

Beauty,  129-133. 
Family  afflictions,  134-35. 
Leaves  Wales,  135. 
Controversy  with  Henry  Jeanes, 

136,  137. 

Brighter  days,  137. 
His  friendship  with   "Orinda," 

138  seq. 


Taylor,  Jeremy : — 

A  Discourse  of  the  Nature  and 
Offices  of  Friendship,  139-44. 

Goes  to  Portmore,  148. 

Chaplain  to  Lord  Conway,  150. 

Friends  and  acquaintances  in  Ire- 
land, 149-53,  168. 

Persecuted  by  Presbyterian  Party, 
156-59. 

Arrested  and  taken  to  Dublin,  158. 

Returns  to  London,  159. 

Ductor  Dubitantium,  161-67. 

Welcomes  Charles  n.,  161,  167- 

Nominated  Bishop  of  Down  and 
Connor,  167. 

His  sternness  as  a  Bishop,  156, 
159,  204. 

Vice  -  Chancellor  of  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  167. 

The  Worthy  Communicant,  169- 
72. 

Difficulties  with  the  Presbyterian 
Clergy,  178-83,  196  seq.,  201 
seq. 

Preaches  at  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment, 189. 

Via  Intelligentice,  189. 

His  labours  in  Ireland,  185-90. 

Funeral  Sermon  on  Archbishop 
Bramhall,  198. 

Dissuasion  from  Popery,  200. 

His  decline,  204. 

Death,  207. 

Jeremy  Taylor  as  a  father,  134 ;  as 
a  counsellor,  163,  166;  as  an 
orator,  188;  his  belief  in  ghosts, 
190  seq. ;  interest  in  architec- 
ture, 205. 

His  style,  43,  59,  60,  88,  93,  102, 
172  ;  217, 218  seq.;  originality, 
89 ;  modernity  of  his  mind,  90- 
92  ;  popularity  as  a  writer,  94, 
145 ;  constant  reference  to  the 
Classics,  74,  86,  93,  103,  222 
seq.  ;  verse  writings,  114-16  ; 


234 


JEREMY  TAYLOR 


Taylor,  Jeremy : — 

position  in  English  literature, 
105, 211-28;  close  observation  of 
nature,220-21;  Coleridge's  great 
admiration  for  his  genius,  211, 
213,  225,  226 ;  brilliancy  as  an 
artist,  212  ;  compared  with  pre- 
ceding divines,  215  ;  growth  of 
his  genius,  217  ;  his  best  work, 
218;  beauty  of  his  writings,  213, 

218  ;  their  naturalness  and  sim- 
plicity, 219  ;  purity  of  his  taste, 

219  ;  daring  use  of  metaphors, 
219-20  ;  laxity  of  his  grammar, 
225  ;  his  vocabulary,  227-28. 

Dr  Rowland,  1,  2. 

Nathaniel  (father),  1,  2. 

Edmund  (grandfather),  2,  3. 

Mary,  nee  Dean  (mother),  3. 

Phoebe,  nee  Langsdale  (wife), 

20,  21,  86,  87. 

William  (son),  86. 

Edward  (son),  186. 

Charles  (son),  206,  207. 

Joanna,  nee  Bridges  (2nd  wife), 

117,  118,  126, 186. 
Thanatologia  (Dr.  John  Sterne),  153. 
Theocritus,  142. 
Theognis,  142. 
Theological  literature  of  the  17th 

century,  214. 

Thurland,  Sir  Edward,  128, 133, 188. 
Tillotson,  214. 

Topica  Sacra  (Harrison),  151. 
Treves,  Sir  Frederic,  92,  93. 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  167-69. 


Twenty-Eight  Sermons,  79  seq.,  99. 
Twenty -Five  Sermons,  98,  99,  101. 

U 
Unum  Necessarium,  116,  117,  122, 

123, 124. 

Uppingham,  16-24. 
Urn-Burial  (Sir  Thomas  Browne), 

198. 

V 

Vane,  Sir  Harry,  21. 
Vaughan,  Henry,  114,  115. 
Vaughan,  Richard,  see  Carbery. 
Via  Intelligentice,  189. 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  105. 
Virgil,  225. 
Virginity,  74. 
Vita  Jesu  Christi  (Ludolphus  of 

Saxony),  62. 

W 

Waller,  125. 

Ware,  Sir  James,  3. 

Warner,   Bishop    John,   109,   117, 

120,  125,  126. 

Wedderburn,  Sir  John,  145. 
Weeke,  Andrew,  148,  149. 
Wilkins,  John,  129. 
William  ill. ,  171. 
Witchcraft,  74. 
Wood,  Anthony  a,  13,  18,  83,  130, 

145. 
Worthy  Communicant,  The,  169-72, 

218,  223. 

Wray,  Lady,  1,  2,  126. 
Wyatt,  William,  35. 


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TIMES. — "  Mr.  Harrison  knew  Ruskin  at  his  best  ;  lectured  with  him  at  the 
Working  Men's  College  ;  visited  him  at  Denmark  Hill ;  and  in  later  years  often  saw 
and  corresponded  with  him.  The  result  is  a  study  of  the  writer  marked  in  equal 
measure  by  discrimination  and  sympathy ;  and  a  picture  of  the  man,  vivid  and 
arresting." 

GLOBE. — "  The  best  account  of  Ruskin  and  his  work  which  has  yet  been  given 
to  the  world.  The  writer  is  sure  of  his  facts,  and  is  able  to  illuminate  them  by  means 
not  only  of  a  close  personal  acquaintance  with  his  subject,  but  also  of  a  wide  and  deep 
knowledge  of  many  other  men  and  things." 

DAILY  TELEGRAPH.— '"The  fourth  of  the  new  series  of  '  English  Men  of 
Letters,'  which,  with  the  volumes  yet  to  come,  ought  to  form  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  literary  judgments  passed  by  the  present  generation  on  the  great  masters  of 
English  literature.' 


TENNYSON 

By  Sir  ALFRED  LYALL,  K.C.B. 

TIMES. — "  The  criticism  is  always  sane,  and  sometimes  brilliant ;  it  never  errs  on 
the  side  of  exuberance  ;  and  it  is  expressed  in  excellent  English,  moulded  into  dignified 
paragraphs." 

DAILY  TELEGRAPH.— "The  memoir  is  admirably  carried  out,  telling  the 
reader  precisely  what  he  wants  to  know,  giving  an  account  of  what  the  poems  contain, 
as  well  as  a  running  commentary  upon  their  character  and  value,  being  written,  in 
short,  not  for  the  superior  person,  but  for  the  average  man  of  the  world  with  literary 
tastes." 

SAMUEL  RICHARDSON 

By  AUSTIN  DOBSON. 

TIMES. — "Mr.  Austin  Dobson  has  written  what  is  very  nearly  a  perfect  little 
book  of  its  kind.  .  .  .  Mr.  Dobson's  book  is  composed  with  infinite  literary  tact,  with 
precision,  and  a  certain  smiling  grace,  and  friendly  and  easy  touch,  at  once  remark- 
able and  charming.  Mr.  Dobson  is  always  accurate  in  bis  facts.  He  is  fresh, 
vivacious,  and  interesting  in  his  conclusions." 

Mr.  W.  L.  COURTNEY  in  the  DAILY  TELEGRAPH.— "Mr.  Dobson's  study 
is  absolutely  in  the  first  rank,  worthy  to  be  put  by  the  side  of  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's 
criticism  of  George  Eliot." 

WESTMINSTER  GAZETTE.—"  We  have  nothing  but  praise  to  utter  of  Mr. 
Dobson's  contribution  to  '  English  Men  of  Letters.'" 

BROWNING 

By  G.  K.  CHESTERTON. 

TIMES. — "The  originality  and  suggestiveness  of  Mr.  Chesterton's  work  .  .  . 
his  sanity  and  virility  of  temper  are  evident  and  refreshing." 

Mr.  W.  L.  COURTNEY  in  the  DAILY  TELEGRAPH.— "One  of  the  most 
illuminating  and  stimulating  pieces  of  work  which  have  been  produced  in  our  not 
wholly  critical  age. " 

ATHENsEUM.—"  This  new  volume  of  the  '  English  Men  of  Letters '  is  one  of 
the  most  refreshing  in  that  admirable  series." 

PILOT. — "  An  interesting,  entertaining,  and  even  inspiring  life  of  a  great  poet." 

CRABBE 

By  ALFRED  AINGER. 

TIMES.—"  Canon  Ainger  has  given  us  the  book  we  should  expect  from  him,  one 
full  of  sincerity,  good  taste,  and  good  sense.  The  story  of  the  poet's  uneventful  life 
is  admirably  retold,  with  the  quiet  distinction  of  a  style  which  is  intent  on  its  own 
business  and  too  sure  of  producing  its  effect  to  care  about  forcing  attention  by 
rhetorical  or  epigrammatic  fireworks.  And  Canon  Ainger  has  been  fortunate  enough 
to  be  able  to  add  a  few  new  facts,  and  throw  a  little  new  light  on  the  poet's  life." 

GLOBE. — "  Unquestionably,  and  even  obviously,  this  volume  by  Canon  Ainger  is 
the  best  available  account  of  Crabbe  and  his  works.  The  treatment  is  careful, 
thorough,  and,  while  sympathetic,  shrewd." 

DAILY  NEWS.—"  Admirably  done.  .  .  The  first  adequate  biography  of 
Crabbe  that  has  yet  appeared." 

FANNY  BURNEY 

By  AUSTIN  DOBSON. 

TIMES. — "A  book  of  unfailing  charm — perhaps  the  most  charming  of  this 
admirable  series." 

GLOBE. — "  Eloquent  and  sparkling." 


JEnglisb  flfoen  of  %ettecs. 


EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY. 

RE-ISSUE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  SERIES. 

LIBRARY  EDITION.     UNIFORM  WITH  THE  NEW  SERIES. 

Crown  8v0.     Gilt  tops.     Flat  backs.     2s.  net  each. 


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c.  10.11.03. 


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